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TERSE VERSE 



WALT AWAY FROM HOME 



Walt Mason is a remarkably deft and ingenious rhymeSler. His 
outlook is genial and wholesome, and he preaches the old-fashioned 
v«'ues. —London Spectator. 

Mason is on the side of the angels and domeAicity, and all that 
makes tor goodness. —Belfast Whig. 

Walt Mason's poems are remarkable for their simple, dired, and 
unspoiled air of sincerity. —Dublin Independent 

Shows all the characfleristic courage of his countrymen when he 
writes on the humbug of public life. 

— Civil and Military Gazette, Bombay, India. 

His humor is genuine ^uff, full of shrewd wisdom and knowledge 
of human nature. —London Morning Post. 

Walt Mason holds by his sheer earneSness, simplicity, humor, and 
unconventionality. —Dublin Freeman's Journal. 

One wonders how he does it so easily and so well. 

— London Tatler. 

Read Walt for breakfast and he bucks you up for the day; at 
lunch, and you face the afternoon; in the evening, and you feel too 
good to seek dissipation. He contributes to the cheerfulness of a 
continent and helps it in its great task of smiling through the labors 
of the day. — London Evening Standard. 

The verses themselves are well wrought, flowing numbers that get 
along smoothly and spontaneously, singing, often in a spirit of pure 
fun, but not seldom with a shrewd and tender seriousness underneath 
iheir racy American facetiousness, about the virtues and occasional 
contrarieties of domestic life. — Edinburgh Scotsman. 



Terse Verse 

BY 



Valt Mason is a Letter tonic tKan 
anything that ever was bottled. 

~~ Elbert Hubbard 






CHICAGO 

A.C.McCLURGeCQ 

1917 



^'^''%,^% 



Copyright 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 

1917 



Published November, 1917 



Copyrighted in Great Britain 

Thanks are extended to George Matthew Adams 
for permission to use copyright poems in this book 



W. F. M»LU PRINTING COMPANY, OMIOAOO 



/ |..^> 



NOV i? iS 17 

S)G1.A479101 



To 
ANNIE AND CHARLIE 




OVERTURE 

DEAR long since to the hearts of hundreds of 
thousands of readers of the daily papers 
are the rhymes, printed in form of prose, of 
Walt Mason. They are writ in the vividly living 
speech of people of today, disdaining nothing 
bf clean slang or ephemeral neologisms of col- 
loquialism. Their meter is perfect always and 
the turns of phrase burgeon with blooms of fe- 
licitous surprise. They are in themselves a def- 
inition of humor — they express a thorough un- 
derstanding of life in its daily round and they 
formulate a criticism of it in a spirit of broad 
tolerance. They put the pleasant view of the 
small trials of existence. If they condemn any- 
thing, it is with a certain undercurrent of sym- 
pathy for human foible and frailty. Optimistic 
they are pronouncedly, but not fatuously so. 
They are almost always character portraits of 
individuals or types. They have a philosophy 
of common sense in which idealism and prac- 
ticality are curiously blent. Above all, each 
verse is a character-photograph of Walt Mason 
himself — a smiling philosopher with a gift of 
song. The flow of his rhythm and the measure 
of his rhyme are well-nigh faultless, so that the 
verses seem to be ordinary speech become po- 




Il 



t ■ 



etry, as it were, by accident. Their cadence 
and harmony are not the result of any strain 
of arrangement in words. They are innocent 
of labored involutions and inversions of words 
and they never clog the thought. Each poem 
goes singing straight to its mark and the end 
is always a sort of glory of culmination and 
demonstration. It ends w^ith the effect of a 
flash of light. There is no repetition of thought 
or language. Each poem deals with a partic- 
ular character or condition in a way to present 
its universal aspect, colored by the writer's love 
for folks like the rest of us. So his work is 
not trivial, properly estimated. It is important 
and it is none the less so for being irrefragably 
American in its strongly love-diluted cynicism. 
I quite agree with Mr. William Dean Howells 
in the high estimate he puts upon Walt Mason's 
rhymes. They make you feel at once just a 
little better than and think a little, not so much 
of yourself, as they make you see yourself in 
other fellows and in the situations which Walt 
describes and interprets in terms of a rippling 
rhyme that never quite descends to mere 
jingle. 

—William Marion Reedy. 




"Here's to the man who labors and does it 
with a song. He stimulates his neighbors and 
helps the world along." 



"I want to chortle the best I can, and try 
to cheer up my fellow-man; to make a fellow 
forget his care and make him laugh when he 
wants to swear." 





Adam's Off Ox, 33. Affectation, 105. After Death, 
150. Anomaly, The, 64. Asking Favors, 156. 
Autumn Leaves, 17 4. 

B 

Back to the Farm, 13. Bad Cooking, 104. Bank 
Account, The, 8 2. Banker, The, 138. Beauty, 
154, Bedtime Stories, 171. Beggar, The, 74. 
Belated Winter, 148. Birthdays, 38. Blowing 
It In, 8. Book Borrowers, 130. Bully, The, 
140. Burros, 67. 



Campaign Thunder, 60. Carelessness, 91. Change 
of Heart, 144. Childish Joys, 112. Christmas 
Bells, 43. Confidence, 17 5. Contentment, 7 3. 
Convalescence, 90. Criticism, 114. 



D 

Dandelions, 12. Danger Car, The, 22. Dead Leaves, 
170. Dead Ones, The. 26. Dizzy Daughter, 
The, 159. Domestics, 137. Dreams, 76. Dreams 
Realized, 169. 




-"^^i^lS^ 




Evicted, 34. Evil Renown, 168. Exercise, 165. 



Fall Days, 61. Farm Life, 135. Farming, 19. 
Fleeing Time, 128. Fresh Air Fan, The, 115. 
Friends, 141. Future Deeds, 83. 



Gems, 2. Ghosts, 65. Going Back Home, 155. 
Good Scouts, 99. Graybeards, The, 29. Grief 
Universal, 4. Grunter, The, 69. 



H 

Happiness, 85. Hard Work, 118. Has-Beens, The, 
102. Hello Girl, The, 160. Hermit, The, 95. 
High Prices, 58. House and Home, 94. Hymn 
of Hate, 129. 



In the Fall, 52. Insomnia, 120. Into All Lives, 
121. 



Just As Good, 103. 



W' K 

Keep Off the Grass, 15 2. Keeping Things Neat, 
132. Kind Word, The, 167. Knowing the 
Worst, 68. 

L 

Land O' Dreams, 161. Lasting Fame, The, 162. 
Learning the Auto, 92. Life Is Thus, 44. 
Life We Live, The, 23. Literature, 5. Look- 
ing On, 21. Loss of Appetite, 111. Luckless 
Man, The, 97. 

M 

Making Good, 70. Maneater, The, 136. Man's 
Plans, 62. Married People, 126. Martyr, The, 
27. Menagerie, The, 37. Methuselah, 101. 
Missus, The, 153. Model Kid, The, 80. Modern 
Jail, The, 134. Money Back, 78. Money Goes, 
The, 39. Money to Loan, 107. Monumental, 
176. Morning On the Farm, 28. 



New Idea, The, 6. 
Spare, 40. 



N 

No Chance, 18. Nothing to 



o 



Obedience, 35. Obvious Truth, 149. Old and Out, 
77. Old English, 54. Old Songs, 96. Old 
Timers, 66. Old Virtues, The, 124. Other 
Fellow, The, 30. Our Destination, 84. 



Jt 




Pauper, The, 123. Perversity, 55. Pessimism, 48. 
Pilgrimage, The, 142. Piute's Library, The, 
113. Poor Listener, The, 89. Poor, The, 42. 
Population, 9 3. Post Mortem, 166. Profitless 
Talk, 143. Progressive Piety, 75. Promoted, 
47. Prompt Pay, 59. Prosperity, 15. Pump- 
kin, The, 127. 

R 

Relief Coming, 49. Rich Man, The, 139. Root of 
Evil, 71. Rosebush, The, 16. Rubber Tires, 53. 



Safe Driver, The, 81. Salesmen, 25. Salted Down, 
63. Sam and Jim, 20. Satisfaction, 151. 
Selfishness, 110. Sickness, 122. Singer, The, 
9. Slow But Sure, 86. Sluggard, The, 133. 
Solace, 163. Solemn Sanctity, 32. Speed Fiend, 
The, 72. Speeding Years, 116. Spring Song, 
131. Spring Thoughts, 87. Standing the Gaff, 
117. Stolen or Strayed, 100. Storm, The, 108, 
Sunday, 157. Sweetest Words, 57. 



They Say, 45. Think Twice, 98. Thriftless, 125. 
Timely Topic, The, 7. Times Change, 51. 
Tired, 145. Tobacco, 14. Tomorrow's Tangle, 
10. Town and Country, 36. Towser, 147. 
'Twas Ever Thus, 3. Two Kinds, 31. 




Unappreciative Man, 88. Unhappy Father, 146. 
Unreliable, 50. Unruly Kids, 56. Unwise 
Praise, 41. 



V 

Vain Fears, 158. Veiled Future, The, 109. 
tion of Spirit, 46. Vital Truths. 1. 



Vexa- 



W 

Watch, The, 79. Week's End, 164. Whiskers, 17. 
Wider Fields, 24. Wintry Winds, 119. Wishes, 
173. Woman at Home, The, 11. Work and 
Rest, 172. Workers, 106. 





" 'Make somebody happy today!' Each 
morning that motto repeat, and life that was 
gloomy and gray at once becomes pleasant 
and sweet." 



"To do your best, within your breast a 
cheerful heart undaunted — that is the plan 
that brings a man, all things he ever wanted." 



ill 



v_ 



VITAL TRUTHS 

THE vital truths are old and gray; they're old 
because they're true; the vital truth we 
spring today, old Father Noah knew. If any 
man comes up, forsooth, and says that he can 
show a truly modern vital truth, oh, lay the 
faker low. A man might rustle up a lie that 
bears the signs of youth, but never, friend, will 
you descry a strictly recent truth. The vital 
truth is that which leads the sons of men aright, 
to useful lives and goodly deeds, and records 
clean and white. We know that industry will 
pay, that honesty is great; and truths like these 
however gray, are never out of date. Old 
Adam knew them as he wrought among the 
first green trees, and he rehearsed them as he 
sought his missing swarm of bees. Oh, every 
blessed rule of life, that's likely to exalt, was 
old when Lot's devoted wife became a chunk 
of salt. The vital truths are but a few, and easy 
to adopt; the truths which seem grotesquely 
new don't count, and may be dropped. 



[1] 




GEMS 






{DECKED with gems my person fat, they glit- 
tered with exceeding splendor; I had some 
rubies on my hat, an emerald on each sus- 
pender. Oh, men could see me from afar, and 
straightway they grew sore and jealous; I twin- 
kled like the little star of which the ancient 
hymn-books tell us. I wore a sapphire on my 
shirt, my cummerbund was diamond-fretted; 
the weight of all my jewels hurt, and long be- 
neath the load I sweated. And ever as I toiled 
along, for dining halls or ball rooms heading, I 
saw the tired and sad-faced throng that finds 
this life such dreary sledding. I saw men push 
their jaded feet in search of work that always 
dodged them, and women turned into the street 
from squalid rooms that lately lodged them. I 
saw them by the souphouse ranked, poor, hope- 
less skates, all trodden under; and as I looked 
my diamonds clanked, and made a noise like 
distant thunder. I saw a stiff fished from a 
brook, some worn-out wife or wayward sister; 
and as I took a startled look, my diamonds 
seemed to scorch and blister. I've cut out all 
the precious stones; one can't enjoy that form 
of granite, while hearing all the wails and 
groans that rise from this old hard luck planet. 



[2] 




'TWAS EVER THUS 

WHEN I am well I josh the doc, and say his 
pills are made of chalk, which never 
cured a human ache; that all his science is a 
fake. I roast him bitterly because he is too 
handy with his saws, and seems so anxious to 
remove one's backbone from its old-time 
groove. But when my organs all go wrong, 
and I'm no longer hale and strong, but doubled 
up with grievous pains, clear from my fetlocks 
to my brains, the doctor is my only hope; I 
clamor for his pills and dope. And if he 
brings his saw and spade, and says he thinks 
he'll have to wade all through my system with 
the same, I say, "Go on, and hew my frame!" 
And when I'm lying on my bed, with poultices 
upon my head, I murmur softly to the nurse, 
"The good old doc no more I'll curse! His 
science kept me from the grave, and after this 
I will behave." But when I'm on my feet once 
more, I hang around the corner store, and say 
the doctor is a fake who couldn't shoo away 
an ache. Thus, when our cares have taken 
wings, we hoot and jeer at solemn things. 



[S] 



GRIEF UNIVERSAL 

IT seems the cost of living is not a local ill ; all 
round the world it's giving poor purchasers 
a chill. Beside the broad Nyanzas the people 
kick and roar, as buyers do in Kansas, when at 
the corner store. Where knobby alligators in- 
fest the stagnant Nile, it takes, to buy some 
taters, the poor consumer's pile. By many an 
ancient river, by many a storied lake, men pay 
as much for liver as they should pay for steak. 
Where sweet and spicy breezes blow soft o'er 
Ceylon's isle, the purchaser of cheeses forgets 
to sing and smile. Among the hills of Sweden, 
mid Greenland's snow and ice, the people's 
hearts are bleedin' when they behold the price. 
Along the dark McKenzie, and by the languid 
Po, consumers, in a frenzy, are lifting wails of 
woe. The Eskimo, when buying his tenderloin 
of whale, the Hottentot, who's trying to eat a 
hemlock rail, all swell the angry chorus, all 
weep and tear the robe ; the grief we see before 
us extends around the globe. 



[4] 



I 



LITERATURE 



MOST people who have things to sell now 
profit from H. C. of L. The farmer's 
butter, eggs and oats bring in the plain and 
fancy groats. The nian who sells us shoes and 
boots, the one who deals in all wool suits, the 
butcher, with his wholesome meat — all charge 
the limit, and repeat. But writers, in their 
squalid lairs, can't raise the prices of their 
wares. The poet has to purchase meat, and 
leather caskets for his feet, and every hour the 
prices rise on things that threadbare singer 
buys. The prunes that cost ten cents a ton 
before this era was begun, now cost him twice 
as much a pound, and so it goes, the whole list 
round. But when he sweats in his abode, and 
grinds a grand and deathless ode, he cannot go 
around and say, "The price of rhyme's gone up 
today; so many poets have been slain, where 
armies rage on Europe's plain, that there's a 
dearth of noble rh3nne, and so I've raised the 
price a dime." He cannot put this scheme 
across, for art is now a total loss. The men 
with henfruit, hay or cheese, may charge such 
prices as they please, but they who make the 
muses sweat, must take whatever they can get. 



[6] 






THE NEW IDEA 



LAST fall I heard a candidate stand on a 
rostrum and orate. To those assembled 
in the hall, he talked good roads, and that was 
all. He'd primed himself with useful facts, and 
dished them up in cataracts. He told how I 
taxes go to waste when we make roads in 
sloppy haste. I went to hear his rival speak; 
he talked and talked, almost a week. An old 
time politician he, who boomed the Boon of 
Liberty. Our Freedom was his foremost brag; 
he wept when speaking of the Flag. He 
painted, with impassioned skill, our victory at 
Bunker Hill, and talked a while of Valley 
Forge, and threw a harpoon at King George. 
And when election day arrived, the good roads r 
candidate survived, while he who talked of j 
Precious Boons was handed forty kinds of } 
prunes. I'm glad we are outliving mush, and J 
tommyrot and bunk and slush. I'm glad old | 
tricks are in disgrace, that patriots who want a ' 
place, must talk horse sense and eke brass 
tacks, or leave the course with broken backs. | 




[61 



•!"• , -ill 




y^^ 



/ 




THE TIMELY TOPIC 



WHEN modern people get together, they do 
not talk about the weather, as fellows used 
to do; but each one, in his conversation, de- 
scribes some painful operation that lately he's 
gone through. The innocent bystander catches, 
while listening, disjointed snatches of talk that 
runs this way: "Oh, yes, I went to Dr. Sidney, 
and he removed my starboard kidney — his bill 
I've yet to pay." "The surgeon, in a boastful 
humor, still quotes my large, ingrowing tumor, 
as w^orst he ever saw." "When from the chloro- 
form emergin', I clinched my fist and soaked 
the surgeon a dinger on the jaw." "That old 
Doc Faker is a wizard ; the way that he cut out 
my gizzard was something simply fine." "Doc 
Chestnut says my system's rusty, and he will 
take his bucksaw trusty, and amputate my 
spine.** "The doc assures me my salvation 
depends alone on amputation, if I would shake 
the gout." "I hear that Jeremiah Proctor has 
hired a famous eastern doctor to dig some 
organs out," 'Twixt them and me the gulf 
grows wider; alas, I am a rank outsider — I 
never have been hewn! When my insides are 
in commotion I simply mix a drastic potion, 
and take it with a spoon I 



^M 



[7] 



r 



BLOWING IT IN 



OF all the divers brands of joy that make our 
journey sunny, of all the bliss without 
alloy, there's none like spending money. It's 
well to put away a wad, against the rainy 
weather; it's well, when hard times are abroad, 
to have some coins together. But when you've 
salted down a roll of sesterces and talents, then, 
to invigorate your soul, go out and blow the 
balance. Don't let the saving habit grow, until 
you are a miser; salt down a part, a portion 
blow — that policy's the wiser. I like to toddle 
to the bank and put some bones in pickle; I like 
to save, but I'm no crank on saving every 
nickel. I like to take the extra plunk, and to 
the mart go flying, and buy a lot of useless 
junk, just for the sake of buying. I like to 
whisper to the clerks, "Get busy, boys, get 
busy! I've come to buy the whole blamed 
works, and make you fellows dizzy!" Of all 
the standard brands of bliss, that fill our lives 
with honey, there's surely nothing equals this— 
the blowing in of money! 



i^ 



[8] 



w 



THE SINGER 



I 



1 



SING my song the whole day long, and keep 
my harp a-going, to try to cheer the people 
near, while dodging bricks they're throwing. 
I sing of hope and all such dope, of gay and 
bright tomorrows, of canning care and black 
despair, and putting lids on sorrows. Year 
after year this sort of cheer, I'm tirelessly pro- 
viding, and my winged steed keeps up his 
speed, though galled by too much riding. 
I Throughout this land the folks will stand a lot 

1 of misfit singing, if but the bard, when whoop- 

I ing hard, a gladsome note is springing. Though 
cracked his voice, if he'll rejoice, and laugh at 
woe and wailing, men will remark, "Long may 
his bark on smiling seas be sailing!" Yet poets 
write of starless night, and ghouls and women 
weeping, of lovers dead and vampires dread 
that batten on the sleeping. The dismal pote 
oft finds his goat has from his keeping wan- 
dered; his odes won't bring enough, by jing, to 
have his nightie laundered. For in this vale the 
rhythmic wail will never tempt sane buyers, 
who'll blow their piles for cheerful smiles and 
lays by lilting liars. 



C9] 



TOMORROW'S tangle to the winds resign," 
old Omar said, and thus in one brief line, 
set forth more wisdom than most poets spring, 
in all the years through which they live and 
sing. With present griefs man fearlessly com- 
bats; he pulls their ears and kicks them in the 
slats; and, like a knight in armor gone afield, 
he quite enjoys the tilting that they yield. But, 
having whipped the dragons of today, with 
manner bold and debonair and gay, he feels 
the ardor in his breast expire; "Tomorrow's 
dragons and chimeras dire," he mutters low, 
"will seize me by the throat, remove my scalp 
and bear away my goat." Tomorrow's dragons 
may be one inch tall; tomorrow's troubles may 
not come at all. If you today have fought a 
goodly fight, forget your fears, and sleep in 
peace tonight, and when you wake the good 
old sun will shine; tomorrow's tangle to the 
winds resign. 



[10] 



THE WOMAN AT HOME 

PLEASE note this little fact, I beg: It is the 
hen that lays the egg; the rooster does the 
yelling; he flaps his silly wings and crows, and 
points with pride a while, and throws some fits 
around your dwelling. And every time I hear 
him whoop, and prance around the chicken- | 

coop, a-feeling hunkydory, I think of husbands | 

I have known, who think that they, and they | 

alone, ' deserve the praise and glory. They I 

would ignore the patient wives who organized ; 

their misfit lives, when they were badly sag- 
ging, who bore the burden of the day, and 
helped to cut the swath of hay of which the 
hubs are bragging. There's many a fellow 
known to fame who would have failed to win 
the game, but for some little woman, who, 
staying humbly in the dark, still made her old 
man toe the mark, w^ith patience superhuman. 
And, having climbed from out the ruts, how 
haughtily that old man struts, how proudly tells 
his story! The wife beholds that crowing gent, 
and softly smiles, for she's content with a re- 
flected glory. 



[11] 




DANDELIONS 

UPON my lawn, I know not why, the dande- 
lions thrive; the grass may all curl up and 
die, but they'll remain alive. I've tried about 
a million plans, to have the vile things slain; 
and all the schemes were also-rans, and all my 
efforts vain. The fair petunias that I bought, at 
fabulous expense, the sweet begonias that I 
brought and planted by the fence, the tulips 
from the Netherlands, they all have died the 
death, but still the dandelion stands, disfiguring 
the heath. My vine and figtree withered are, 
the rosebush passed away, the fern that grew in 
yonder jar shows symptoms of decay; the lilac, 
when the nights w^ere cold, turned up its tender 
toes, and still the dandelion bold, its streak of 
yellow shows. If dandelions were desired, if 
they would bring in mon, if every gardener 
aspired to raise them by the ton, they'd make a 
specialty of death, they'd languish from their 
birth, and shrivel at the slightest breath, and 
perish from the earth. 



[12] 



^ 



BACK TO THE FARM 

I'LL buy a little farm somewhere," the old 
man says, "and tinker there, until it's time 
to go to sleep, down where the bending willows 
weep. I know a farm I'd like to buy; it's where 
I lived when three feet high. It's where my 
father used to strive to keep the family alive. 
'Twas there, in bygone, golden days, I hoed the 
beans and husked the maize, and dreamed of 
triumphs I'd achieve, when I that dreary farm 
could leave. To dwell in cities was my aim, to 
cut a swath and conquer fame, and that old 
sandy, rocky farm for me was quite devoid of 
charm. The dreams I dreamed have all come 
true, I've done the things I meant to do, but I 
am old and worn and tired, and for a long time 
I've desired, above all other things, to go back 
to the scenes I used to know." Thousands of 
old men talk that way; when they are bent by 
the years, and gray, feeble of step and weak of 
arm, they turn their eyes to the old home farm. 



I 



[13] 




"^"^si^eaBB^^^, 




TOBACCO 

TOBACCO is a harmful weed, the learned 
physicians are agreed. It stains the teeth 
and bites the tongue, and injures larynx, heart 
and lung, it spoils the whiskers, taints the 
breath, and sends man to an early death, and 
when he's laid beneath the sod the legal lights 
divide his wad. And yet if this punk weed 
were barred, we'd find the sledding pretty 
hard, for in one thing tobacco's blest, in that it 
soothes the savage breast. And many hus- 
bands are serene, who would be quarrelsome 
and mean, indulging oft in mental gripes, if you 
should take away their pipes. When I am 
smoking I'm as mild as any gent that ever 
smiled, and folks who hear me chirp and bleat, 
remark, "His temper is so sweet!" But when, 
impelled by aims sublime, I cut out smoking for 
a time, I'm sore as any growling bear that mum- 
bles soupbones in its lair, and all the women in 
the shack are hoping I will soon get back to 
blowing smoke around my room, e'en though 
it means an early tomb. 




[14] 





PROSPERITY 



WHEN man is poor, and wealth or fame 
seems far beyond his hope and aim, he is 
so unobtrusive then, he makes a hit with fellow- 
nien. He saws his wood and mows his hay, 
and has a modest, winning way, and all his 
course of conduct shows he doesn't, fatuous, 
suppose that if from mundane scenes he'd drop, 
the whole blamed universe would stop. He 
strives to earn his w^eekly checks, and is a credit 
to his sex. But when his eager, straining feet 
have landed him in Easy street, his head swells 
up, he chesty grows, and of his stake he brags 
and blows, he sneers at men who have not 
grown as big a bundle as his own. He flaunts 
the package he has made, and keeps himself on 
dress parade, and loads his wife and silly girls 
with silks and clanking gold and pearls, till 
people wish he'd lose his roll, and be the old- 
time simple soul. Prosperity, when it arrives, 
oft ruins good and useful lives. When Fortune 
hammers at our doors, it turns good fellows 
into bores. 





THE ROSEBUSH 

THE bush whereon the blushing rose, when 
things are favorable, grows, is looking sick 
and blue; to keep the bush from going dead, I 
give it arsenate of lead, and London purple, 
too. I wash the stem with kerosene, and dope 
the leaves with Paris green, and other com- 
pounds weird ; and as 1 use the poisoned dope, 
I feel the shriveling of hope, and tears stream 
down my beard. And as I toil I wonder why 
the lovely things must always die, without a 
good excuse; the jimpson and the mullein 
thrive, the cockleburs are still alive — you can- 
not cook their goose. A Keats will perish in his 
youth, while some old cross-roads bard, for- 
sooth, will live two hundred years; a horse dies 
early, as a rule, but for a century the mule will 
wag its misfit ears. The cow that gives all kinds 
of milk, whose butterfat is fine as silk, will seek 
the railway track, and there she'll stand and 
chew her gums, until a locomotive comes, and 
telescopes her back. With thoughts like these 
I stand and spray my dying rosebush every day, 
and know it's all in vain, for everything that's 
lovely dies, and man can only swat the flies in 
sorrow and in pain. 



[16] 



WHISKERS 

I OFTEN cry, "Oh, goodness gracious! My 
whiskers, rank, apocynaceous, grow faster 
every year; it takes so much of toil and trouble, 
to mow away the doggone stubble — I still must 
shear and shear." I'm shaving, with the lather 
foaming, at early morn and in the gloaming, 
and by the midnight lamp; I'm shaving when I 
should be earning some coin to keep the fires 
a-burning, till I have barber's cramp. The time 
men waste, their whiskers mowing, if it were 
spent in useful sowing, would renovate the 
earth; why, ask the Innocent Bystanders, do 
faces run to oleanders, which have no price or 
worth? It must be great to be a woman, upon 
whose face, so fair and bloomin', alfalfa doesn't 
grow; she doesn't, with her sisters, gather, at 
barbershops, the taste of lather she doesn't ever 
know. But man must always be a-stropping; 
to mow away the new outcropping, his tools 
must have an edge; and if his whiskers are neg- 
lected, his friends will cry, till he's dejected, 
"Come from behind the hedge I" 



[17] 



.aSK«!VS'Ji.^««S«3»t.-»MWW»i5?^ 





NO CHANCE 




THE man who never had a chance, the victim 
of fell circumstance, who ne'er was Johnnie- 
on-the-spot — how sad and pitiful his lot! He 
had two hands, as good as those of t'other chap, 
who bravely rose to affluence and high renown, 
and was a credit to the town. He had two legs, 
without a flaw; two smoother legs I never saw, 
and had he used them wisely well, they might 
have made him — who can tell? He had two 
eyes, two ears, a nose, the usual array of toes, 
a dome on which to wear his hats, a liver and a 
set of slats, and whiskers till we couldn't rest; 
the whole equipment he possessed, by which 
the human tribes advance, and yet, he says, he 
had no chance. The wolf was always at his 
door; he had no tick at any store, his wife did 
washing every day, to buy the hungry children 
hay. He had a wishbone and a lung, a solar 
plexus and a tongue, he had two kidneys and a 
wart, and vital organs by the quart; and yet he 
raised the same old whine — because he hadn't 
any spine. 



i 



[18] 



.>T 




FARMING 



THE farmer drives his team afield, and 
whistles as he goes. 'Twas thus some by- 
gone poet spieled, of things no poet knows. 
Few poets ever pushed a mule across a rocky 
farm, or, laboring with rusty tool, disabled back 
and arm. Burns was the only farmer bard I 
can remember now; and he believed the life too 
hard, and gladly soaked his plow. I've never 
heard a farmer lift his voice in ardent song, 
except when, at the noonday shift, he heard the 
dinner gong. I used to drag my weary bones 
the furrowed field along, and I put up a thou- 
sand groans, where I turned loose one song. 
The farmer has so much to do, before the day 
takes wing, so many errands to pursue, he has 
no time to sing. He only whistles now and 
then, when he would call the dog, to chase from 
out the corn again, some stray, bone-headed 
hog. His eyes are fixed upon the sky, to note 
the weather signs, for rain will rust his growing 
rye, and spoil his pumpkin vines; and drouth 
will kill the beans and peas he planted in the 
spring; and, thinking over things like these, he 
fails to smile and sing. 



[19] 



w 



H^' 



SAM AND JIM 



WHEN old Sam Johnson sat in state, that 
man of learning, wis^ and great, with 
Burke and Goldsmith and the rest, Jim Boswell 
■was the butt and jest. They all must have their 
flings at Jim, and none had much respect for 
him. Methinks, had some prophetic dub ap- 
peared before them at their club, and said, 
"This man who is your goat, at whom you laugh 
with scornful note, will by the multitudes be 
read, when all your junk is stale and dead," old 
Sam would then have raised a roar: "Begone, 
false prophet — there's the door!" And yet 
great Johnson, mighty sage, the shining marvel 
of his age, lives only in the book that Jim so 
reverently w^rote of him. Jim's immortality is 
sure; down to the Judgment 'twill endure, w^hile 
those who jeered his little games, have left but 
half-forgotten names. And it may be, men now 
on earth, whose work we think has little worth, 
will leave a deathless fame behind when they 
have quit their humble grind, while pompous 
prodigies lie down, and, dying, kill off their 
renown. 



[20] 



li 






LOOKING ON 



I LIKE to linger in the shade, close to the pail 
of lemonade, and watch the honest sons of 
toil get busy with the fertile soil. I like to see 
them shock the wheat, out in the blinding glare 
of heat, the great strong mien who do not tire, 
and all their labors I admire. I wonder at the 
giant strength that they display, the whole day's 
length, and wish I had such thews as theirs — 
I'm soft from riding easy chairs — I envy them 
the appetite which makes coarse fodder a de- 
light, I envy them the sleep profound they know 
when slumbertime comes round; I envy them, 
but do not flee from my retreat beneath a tree. 
I often counsel other men to get back to the soil 
again, to simply live and labor hard, and work 
away their surplus lard. But this soft place 
beneath a tree is plenty good enough for me. 
The men who toil with might and main, who 
plow the glebe and reap the grain, receive my 
earnest, ardent praise, and I embalm them in 
my lays; and I am happy in the shade, with my 
tall jug of lemonade. 



[21] 







THE DANGER CAR 



^ 



THE auto, as a grim destroyer. Is difficult to 
^ beat. Just yesterday I killed a lawyer, while 

1 1 scorching up the street. When first I got my 
car I uttered a vow that I'd go slow. "This 
speeding mania," 1 muttered, "is what brings 
death and woe." But I got going fast and 
faster, like many another scout; and now there's 
always a disaster, whenever I go out. When 
home I come from some brief journey, my wife 
asks, "Who was slain?" I say, "Three clerks 
and an attorney lay dead upon the plain." I 
go kerwhooping every morning, o'er valley, 
weald and wold, all rules and regulations scorn- 
ing, I knock the records cold. A cloud of dust, 
a roar and rattle, and I'm beyond your ken, as 
deadly as a modern battle, a menace to all men. 
The rural cops would like to pinch me, but can't 
get close enough; some day a bunch of men 
will lynch me, and that will be the stuff. And 
while for such a stunt they hanker, I'm scorch- 
ing, far and near; today I crumpled up a bank- 
er, and maimed an auctioneer. 



[22] 



THE LIFE WE LIVE 

THIS life, my friends, is just the thing; one 
day we weep, the next we sing; today we 
whoop, tomorrow wail, which keeps us all from 
going stale. And as our days and years ad- 
vance, we never know just what will chance. 
Tomorrow's mysteries are hid, and she is sit- 
ting on the lid, and what she has in her old 
chest can never be by mortal guessed. And 
that is why this life's sublime, and why we have 
so great a time. If we could in the future tread, 
if we could see a year ahead, and know just 
what the gods will send, the spice of life would 
have an end. The unexpected is the stuff that 
makes this planet good enough. At morn you 
rise, depressed, and say, "I fear 'twill be a lone- 
some day, with none to brush away my tears, 
or tie some tassels on my ears." And while 
you raise a mournful din, your aunt and seven 
kids blow in, with baggage packed in trunk and 
crate, to stay six months, or maybe eight. 'Tis 
then that you, with buoyant mirth, rear up and 
bless your native earth. 



[23] 



IS 

USB 



^WWBSCaKS^ ^>^.*. s:'*^a.^-S6CJ»t'fi«3ais7:d 



WIDER FIELDS 

THE young men drift away from home ; tKey 
go to Rahway and to Nome, to Boston and 
New York! and some of them will cross the 
sea, to try their luck in Gay Paree, in Edin- 
burgh or Cork. They go afar, to play the game, 
to win the laurel w^reath of fame, acquire a 
goodly roll; their native village doesn't yield a 
chance, they want a wider field than Punk- 
town-in-the-Hole. Yet Punktown is a goodly 
town, and here a man may gain renown, and 
wealth, and honors, too; but you are full of 
dreams, my lad, and so you'll hike for Petro- 
grad, across the ocean blue. Across the hills 
and far away, you'll have a better chance, you 
say, as hosts have said before; and so you say 
farewell to all, and leave behind your father's 
hall, his rooftree and his door. I know you'd 
do as well at home as you will do, where'er 
you roam, but it were vain to speak, for youth 
must tread the distant road, find for itself its 
own abode, its Eldorados seek. Go forth and 
hew and carve and build, and may the visions 
be fulfilled that agitate your soul! Go, wander 
'neath a foreign sky, while we old codgers wilt 
and die, at Punktown-in-the-Hole! 



[24] 



SALESMEN 

THROUGHOUT the town my wares I holler, 
and try to sell a new gold dollar for sixty- 
seven cents; in vain, alas, are all my yellings; 
in vain I haunt your shops and dwellings, your 
woodsheds and your tents. No man will buy 
my handsome money; men seem to think it 
must be phony, because I'd sell it cheap; so 
all day long I seek a market, display my coin 
and boost and bark it, and then break down 
and weep. But now comes Nestor Newton 
Neuter, who deals in dollars made of pewter, 
alloyed with lead and tin; he seems to loaf 
while I am sweating, and yet men's bundles he 
is getting, he rakes the greenbacks in. One 
man has got the trick of selling; he needs to do 
no frantic yelling to gather in the plunk; he 
just leans back, his system sunning, and all the 
people come a-running, to buy his blooming 
junk. The other fellow strives and labors to 
sell good plunder to his neighbors, and never 
gets the kale; no scraps of business can he rake 
up; there's something lacking in his make-up, 
he cannot make a sale. 



[25] 



THE DEAD ONES 

WE have grown up in the behef that all the 
geniuses are dead; the living writers run 
to beef, instead of brains, within the head. We 
talk of Addison and Steele, and grow excited 
o'er their charms; and as we talk of them we 
feel that modern scribes are false alarms. The 
other day, distraught and tired, I took Joe 
Addison, his book, and, hoping that I'd be in- 
spired, I read it, in the inglenook. Oh, yes, 
he has a graceful style — as Goldsmith had, 
and all that bunch — but you must read 
about a mile before you come across a punch. 
And Joseph's morals were O. K., the output 
of a thoughtful dome; but he would preach 
for half a day, to drive one little lesson home. 
If I should make my screeds so long, you'd 
close your eyes and gently snore, or else, im- 
pelled by sense of wrong, you'd shoot me for 
a turgid bore. I don't believe that he or 
Steele, or any other old time bard, could sell 
the stuff they used to reel, today, and get five 
cents a yard. 



[26 ] 




THE MARTYR 



"ly^Y wife and seven daughters," said G. 
IVX Augustus Grimes, "beside the briny 
waters are having gorgeous times. This cli- 
mate is a hummer for heat and dust and flies, 
and so they'll spend the summer beneath more 
kindly skies." I said, "But why in Cadiz are 
you thus left behind? Why don't you join the 
ladies, and drop this beastly grind?" "That 
girls may have their pleasure, some man must 
find the dimes, and so I hump for treasure," 
said G. Augustus Grimes. "I like to sweat and 
swelter, to give the girls a treat, and so I leave 
my shelter, and tread the burning street, to earn 
an extra shilling, that they may have their fun; 
of course, I'm more than willing to keep them 
staked with mon. My daughters all are peaches, 
my wife's a lollipop, and on the ocean beaches 
long may they bask and flop." Oh, cheerful, 
manly martyrs, who drag their spavined feet, 
and toil like gravel carters, that girls may have 
a treat I 






MORNING ON THE FARM 

GET up, my lad I The sun is rising, it is a 
most majestic day; Aurora's beauties aie 
surprising, you should be glad to quit the hay. 
Get up, get up, the dew is gleaming, like price- 
less jewels on the grass; it is a sin to lie here 
dreaming, while morning's transient glories 
pass. Get up, my son, the light is stealing 
athwart the summit of the hill, and I can hear 
the porkers squealing for buckets of refreshing 
swill. The oriole's already soaring, the mock- 
ing bird begins to mock, and you, O sluggish 
youth, are snoring, although it's nearly four 
o'clock! When I was young my sainted father 
ne'er had to rouse me from my bed; I thought 
it shame to cause such bother — I rose before 
the East was red. Before the wren began its 
carols, or catbird raised its solo fine, I went and 
carried seven barrels of slop to feed the hump- 
backed swine. I went about my labors singing, 
as I would see you do, my son; and when the 
breakfast bell was ringing, the morning chores 
were always done. Get up, get up, the world 
is waking I The morn is grand, but soon it 
fades! And in three shakes I will be breaking 
this slat across your shoulder blades! 



[28] 



tl 



THE GRAYBEARDS 



WE relics of a bygone time insist that old 
things were sublime, that modern things 
are punk; but our old domes are full of bats, 
and we are talking through our hats, and all 
we say is bunk. The lovely dames come down 
the street, togged out in raiment slick and neat, 
and we look on and sigh; "The modern fash- 
ions," we declaim, "are nothing but a burning 
shame — they shock the purist's eye. They make 
the tired spectator ache; and how the w^omen- 
folk can make themselves a holy show, is 
something that we can't explain; oh, for the 
fashions safe and sane, of forty years ago!" 
We make such statements free and bold, but if 
you take an album old, and view the women 
there, with gowns that look like circus tents, 
and shawls that look like twenty cents, and 
nets upon their hair, you'll say, "Those girls 
were surely shrieks! The world was overrun 
with freaks when those tintypes were made; 
if any woman should appear in such a spread 
of rags this year, the cops would make a raid!" 




[ 29] 



'=^. 



THE OTHER FELLOW 

THE other fellow ought to do the things I 
leave undone; I like to hand him precepts 
true, and counsel by the ton. The other fel- 
low'd find it wise to lead the simple life, to 
rigidly economize, assisted by his wife. While 
I blow in the good long green for diamond- 
studded lyres, for jugs of sparkling gasoline, 
and costly rubber tires. The other fellow ought 
to buy the cheaper cuts of meat, and feed his 
children prunes while I the juicy sirloin eat. 
The other fellow ought to keep within his mod- 
est means, and he can make his living cheap, 
by raising spuds and beans. The other fellow 
ought to sweat and struggle for each dime, 
while I go blithely into debt, and have a bully 
time. The other fellow ought to know that 
rainy days will come, and he, to sidestep grief 
and woe, should save an ample sum. While I 
blow all my coin away, much faster than it's 
earned, and say about the rainy day, "The 
rainy day be derned." ' 



[30] 





TWO KINDS 



THE lad who'd prosper well, and rise, to 
work will blithely walk, and toil with vim, 
nor keep his eyes forever on the clock. "The 
Boss's interests are mine," he to himself will 
say; but the worthless swab loafs on his job, 
when the Boss has gone away. The youth 
who'd reach a higher place, his duties does not 
shirk; the cheerful smile upon his face shows 
that he likes his work. In earning trust and 
confidence he takes a keen delight; but the 
worthless oaf begins to loaf, when the Boss is 
out of sight. The chap who gets the good fat 
check when his week's work is through, is he 
who always is on deck, when there is work to 
do, who toils as bravely when alone as when 
the Boss is near; but the worthless runt neglects 
his stunt, should the Old Man disappear. 




[31] 



iif 




SOLEMN SANCTITY 

SOME pious men are on this earth, who think 
that any kind of mirth is sacrilege or sin, 
and they would tumble from their perch if any 
one should enter church and wear a cheerful 
grin. So gloomy is their house of prayer, you'd 
almost think a corpse was there, a-waiting for 
the hearse; all festive words their souls annoy, 
and they will squelch the signs of joy, with 
chapter and with verse. "Serve Him with 
mirth. His praise foretell," I've heard the grand 
old anthem swell, all through my passing years; 
but those who sing it sing as though His service 
meant the deeps of woe, and misery and tears. 
Why make your creed a doleful thing? Why 
pull long faces when you sing, or grovel when 
you pray? Jehovah made this world so glad, 
he doesn't mean us to be sad throughout our 
little stay. I do not often seek the kirk, be- 
cause if ever smile or smirk my toilworn fea- 
tures wore, a deacon* d drag me from my pew, 
and push me down the aisle and through the 
large cathedral door. 



[32] 




ADAM'S OFF OX 



THE world is old, the man still talks, at 
times, of Adam's starboard ox. When any 
man's profoundly dead, of him it's usually said, 
by folks on the adjacent blocks, that he's as 
dead as Adam's ox. And if a stranger you 
shall see, and you are asked who he may be, 
you say, "I give it up, old sox; I know him 
not from Adam's ox." You say the "off 
ox," all the time, but that won't fit into this 
rhyme. Oh, famous beast, iminortal ox, whose 
shade still on this footstool walks! No other 
brute, since time began, no mouse or mule or 
mole or man, thus effortless has won renown, a 
fame the ages cannot down! How did you 
play your bovine game, that you have earned 
this deathless fame? We hear no word of 
Adam's hog, of Adam's mule, of Adam's dog; 
we've no description of his stove, or of the 
motor car he drove, or of his w^atch or Sunday 
hat, or his imported Maltese cat, but his "off 
ox" has come to stay; we hear it quoted every 
day. 




II 




[ 33 1 



EVICTED 

NEW gray hairs are adorning my venerable 
dome. The sheriff came this morning and 
shooed me from my home. My good wife, 
Jane Mirandy,is weeping by the gate, and little 
Bess and Andy can't get their smiles on straight. 
Life treated us so gayly, that living seemed like 
play, but now it's willow-waly, alas, alackadayl 
We used up every dollar, as fast as it was 
earned, and now we sit and holler for all the 
coin we burned. We laughed at plodding 
neighbors, who pickled half their scads, the 
product of their labors, the dollars of their 
dads. While they were toiling, plugging, with 
fun from them afar, we went around chug- 
chugging, in mortgaged motor car. We heard 
the sages gabble of rainy days and woe, but 
laughed, and joined the rabble, to see the 
movie show. We hit the higher places, regard- 
less of expense, and now the sheriff chases us 
from our residence. Well may you weep. Mi- 
randy, and squirt the tears around, and well 
may Bess and Andy send up a doleful sound. 
Now that we've come our croppers, we view 
things with alarm; and we shall join the pau- 
pers, out at the county farm. 



[34] 



OBEDIENCE 



I HEARD the bonehead parent say, "Now, 
Clarence, put your toy away, and toddle off 
to bed." And Clarence, pampered little boy, 
proceeded to dissect the toy, to amputate its 
head. In half an hour the parent said, "Now, 
Clarence, you must go to bed — I told you once 
before." But little Clarence paid no heed; his 
hobbyhorse he ran with speed, around the par- 
lor floor. Ten minutes later Father cried, "Now 
son, I will not be denied — it's time you were 
asleep." But Clarence barkened not to that; 
he pushed some pins into the cat, and made 
the critter weep. And then I thought of other 
days, of other parents and their ways, and of 
my father* s stick; he never gave an order twice; 
and if I balked I paid the price, which made 
me sore and sick. Perhaps my father was too 
prone to lam my person till each bone felt like 
an aching tooth; but since that parent made me 
scream, we've reached the opposite extreme, 
the boss is giddy youth. And how I yearn to 
have a club when some precocious little dub 
ignores his dad's commands; how I would like 
to comb his hair, and groom his person with a 
chair, and pat him v/ith my hands! 



r 35 ] 




TOWN AND COUNTRY 

THE flowers are blooming in the woods, the 
daffodils and kindred goods, the cowslip 
and the rose; and, as I do my office task, I wish 
that I could go and bask among such things as 
those. Oh, it would surely be sublime, upon a 
fragrant bank of thyme, for drowsy hours to 
rest; to revel in the wholesome breeze, and 
pluck the toadstools from the trees, and rob a 
hornet's nest. But now a farmer comes to town 
— a man whose residence is down where buds 
are bathed in dew; all day he sees the posies 
grow, all day he feels the zephyrs blow his 
flowing sideboards through. And when I'd talk, 
in burning words, of bumblebees and bats and 
birds, and other woodland things, he looks at 
me as though he feels that my fat head is full 
of wheels, and cranks and rusty springs. He 
interrupts my glad harangue, and says, "I do 
not give a dang for cowslip or for rose; I'm 
happy, when the sun goes down, if I can chase 
myself to town, to see the movie shows." 



r 3c 1 



w 



A^ 



THE MENAGERIE 

LL living creatures seem to throng the road 
that I would tour along, in my tin chug- 
mobile; they'll leave their homes and travel 
far, to throw themselves beneath my car, and 
bust a costly wheel. All thoroughfares, with 
j \j mules and goats, and sheep and hens and 
calves and shotes, forevermore are packed; I 
just collided with a cow — against her adaman- 
tine brow, my radiator cracked. The cows will 
leave the tender grass to block the road where 
I must pass, upon my road to town; the hogs 
will leave their sparkling swill to make a stand 
on yonder hill, and turn me upside down. 
Anon I squash a farmer's hen, that surely 
wasn't worth a yen, when it was in its prime; 
but now I hear the owner howl. "You killed my 
rare imported fowl, of pedigree sublime!" I 
jog along and break the slats of dogs and ducks 
and geese and cats, and always, v/hen they die, 
the price goes up to beat the band; "They were 
the finest in the land,** I hear the owners cry. 
The way the farmers' beasts run loose is cer- 
tainly a great abuse, it is no more a joke; and 
if I travel west or east, at every corner there's 
a beast that's suffering to croak. 



[27 1 



^. 





BIRTHDAYS 

A BIRTHDAY is a solemn thing; a fellow 
realizes then, how speedily the days take 
wing, the days that do not come again. A 
little grayer than last year, a little slower in my 
gait, I feel the dump is drawing near, and still 
I keep my smile on straight. A little failure of 
my sight; a bit more deafness in my ears; a 
few more aches — but that's all right! I would 
not stop the scudding years. My bald spot is 
a bit more wide, my muscles grow a trifle slack; 
I have more stitches in my side, a few more 
cricks are in my back. But yonder vault of 
azure bends above no gladder heart than mine, 
for all about me there are friends, who keep an 
old gent feeling fine. Their kind words make 
my bosom swell, and fill my piebald eyes with 
tears; they tell me I am looking well, and hope 
I'll live a hundred years. A few more symp- 
toms of the gout have vainly tried to kill my 
joy; a few more teeth have fallen out, but I'm 
as happy as a boy. 




[38] 



I 



THE MONEY GOES 

SPENT a pfennig for a rose, a groschen for 

some taffy, and said, "The way the money 

' goes would drive a fellow daffy! The cost of 

living keeps us hot, it's threatening to bust us, 

and some one surely should be shot, if there's 

1 such stuflF as justice." I paid a pistole for a 

I pup, a doubloon for a daisy, and then I reared 
■ I three cubits up, and said the times are crazy. 
! j "No matter what a fellow makes," I said, my 

bosom bleeding, "the money goes for cats and 
cakes, and other things he's needing. He can- 
not save a single yen, however hard he's try- 
ing, he's stony broke and broke again, when- 

I I ever he goes buying." I paid a guilder for a 
goose, a kroner for a cradle, a noble for a 
hangman's noose, a livre for a ladle. And I 
was just about to say that it is past man's pow- 
ers, to put a little sum away, against the day of 

1 1 showers. And then my nephew said, "Dear 
Unk, the riot act I'm reading; if you would cut 
out buying junk that no sane man is needing, 
you'd land in Easy street, perhaps, to stay 
there, ere you know it; it's blowing coin for 
useless traps that breaks an old fat poet." 



[39] 



a-. a ,; A> ^i A'r'»>r » fra B g'<rBrsiBr-ffnil»g ii r 




NOTHING TO SPARE 



THE hungry children cry for bread, and I 
would gladly see them fed; my bosom 
bleeds for little ones who have no doughnuts, 
pies or buns, and I would help them out, I ween, 
but need my coin for gasoline. In yonder hut a 
human drove is gathered round an empty stove; 
the father long has had disease — an influenza 
in his knees — the mother's washed for folks in 
town until her health is broken down. Grim 
famine in that shack abides, and all the wretch- 
ed inmates rides. I'd gladly help them in their 
plight, and bring them food and warmth and 
light, and make their empty kettle boil, but 
need my coin for gas and oil. As I go jaunt- 
ing near and far, in my upholstered touring 
car, I see around me signs of want — and they 
disturb my little jaunt. I'd like to aid the ones 
who starve, and give them ducks and hens to 
carve. With loaded arms I'd like to go wher- 
ever there is want or woe, wherever there is 
grief or care, and spread some warmth and 
sunshine there! I'd like to do it, but, alas, I 
need my coin for oil and gas. 



[ 40 



UNWISE PRAISE 

YOU praise your kid before his face, explain 
to callers he's a peach, the pride and glory 
of the race, the only pebble on the beach. 
And soon that kid an aleck grows, a smarty all 
swelled up with pride; and people long to twist 
his nose, and lam the sawdust from his hide. 
The greatest bore that ever was is that obtru- 
sive, forward kid, whose parents gave him wild 
applause for everything he ever did. When 
grave and thoughtful people call, to talk of 
weather and the crops, young Willie grieves 
and shocks them all, by his persistent, foolish 
yawps. The grave and thoughtful people look 
to see the father take a strap, or strip of board, 
or shepherd's crook, and pound that most an- 
noying chap. But Father smiles, as does his 
spouse; he says, "Our Willie is so gay! He is a 
sunbeam in the house, he surely drives one's 
cares away!" The callers do not tarry long, 
they hasten from young Willie's door, and sigh, 
"How sweet to take a thong, and swat that 
kid until he's sore!" 







THE POOR 

"f CANNOT give the poor a cent," remarks 
Jl the portly, stall fed gent, who's just con- 
sumed a pie; "it turns my auburn ringlets gray 
to make ends meet from day to day, all prices 
are so high. Just glance along that bill of fare, 
and note the prices ruling there, on canvasback 
and teal; mark how things cost to beat the 
band, and then perhaps you'll understand why 
I can't spare a wheel. Planked steaks with 
French imported peas,, and all such staple 
things as these, that every man must eat,/ are 
costing now so many wheels' the woebegone 
consumer feels a coldness in his feet* Without 
such things as mushroom sauce my victuals are 
a total loss, and they've gone up in price; ; I 
shudder, too, as well I may, recalling what I 
have to pay for bottles on the ice. A man 
must feed before he thinks of handing out to 
needy ginks a portion of his kale, and he has 
little left, I swear, when he has paid for Belgian 
hare, for oyster stews and quail. I'd help the 
poor, as well as you, if lofty sentiments would 
do, instead of silver dimes. Now I must eat a 
slab of beef, while I deplore the woe and grief 
of these outlandish times." 



[42] 



.w-^-^,..^-^.a.^v. , ..- -.^.^..^^^y^j^^^^r- 





CHRISTMAS BELLS 



I 



I /'^^, Christmas bells, your music swells upon 
V-/ the buoyant winter breeze. I dry my tears 
and shed my years, when I hear happy sounds 
like these, I'm gray and bent, an ancient gent, 
who may not see another spring; my knees are 
sprung, but I feel young, when Christmas bells 
begin to ring. I'd give no hoot for that galoot, 
who doesn't feel the Christmas glow, who 
doesn't sing when joy bells ring, and turn some 
handsprings in the snow. Oh, Christmas bells, 
your music spells forgetfulness of workday 
I cares; a little while we sing and smile, and 
■ dance around like circus bears. A little while 

■■ the grief and guile, the grind of life for- 
gotten are; our hearts are thawed, we walk 
abroad, and sing of Bethlehem afar. A little 
while we cease to pile more plunks upon our 
{ stack of brass; the soul fog lifts, we hand out 

I i gifts, instead of trying to amass. Oh, Christ- 
mas bells, your music dwells forever in the old 
man's mind, recalls the truth of honest youth, 
the days he's left so far behind. 





LIFE IS THUS 

THE parents rear a winsome maid, whose 
name, perhaps, is Rose, and feed her pies 
and marmalade, and buy her furbelows. They 
educate her year by year, with knowledge store 
her mind, although the learning graft is dear, 
and money hard to find. They hope that when 
they're old and gray, the damsel will be near, 
to shoo their dotard griefs away, and dry the 
misfit tear. "She'll surely be our rod and 
staff," they say, "when we old wights are 
ready for the epitaph, and other last sad rites." 
But when the maid is seventeen, there comes 
along a guy, whose car burns up more gasoline 
than any man should buy. Oh, parents cut but 
little grass, when that young man arrives, 
whose wagon, burning up the gas, puts joy in 
maidens' lives. Fair Rose is scorching up the 
road, and hitting hills on high, and in their 
silent, sad abode, the old folks sit and sigh. 
All broken are the hopes and plans which in 
the years have grown ; they know that they are 
also-rans, for youth must have its own. It is 
the saddest thing I know — the saddest man can 
find — ^when children from the homestead go, 
and never look behind. 



44 ] 






THEY SAY 

THEY say that Smithman spends his life in 
dodging bills he ought to pay. They say that 
Biffkin beats his wife, and feeds his children 
bran and hay. They say that Jinx, the dry 
goods prince, burned down his store, with fell 
intent. They say that Jasper Julius Quince 
held up an orphan for a cent. Thus Rumor, 
with its evil tongue, goes drifting through the 
busy mart, and baseless, vicious tales are 
sprung, which wreck your fame and break 
your heart. The busy scandal-monger cries, 
"Of course the yarn may not be true, but still 
they say that Reuben Wise steals chickens 
every night or two." Then Reuben, in his 
native town, becomes a shunned and lonely 
man; "They Say" has ruined his renown, and 
made him outcast from his clan. The scandal- 
monger drifts along, and makes his old ac- 
customed noise: "They say Jane Juice is going 
wrong — she's much too friendly with the 
boys." Then Jane from social scenes is missed, 
in every glance she finds a freeze; "They Say" 
has barred her from bridge w^hist, and banned 
her from the Purple Teas. Old Booze has 
scattered woe and sin, and broken hearts, along 
his way; but he plays second violin, I often 

think, beside "They Say." 
[45] 



ii 

n 



VEXATION OF SPIRIT 

SO long and earnestly I've wrought, pursued 
the beastly grind, I've ringbones on my 
dome of thought, and spavins on my mind. 
The ghastly fear of evil times, of poverty when 
old, has kept me humping after dimes, for gold 
and still more gold. I have a package put 
away, where none can jar it loose; and some- 
times, at the close of day, I wonder what's the 
use. When I have left this busy sphere, where 
only man is vile, some able lawyer will appear, 
and gather in my pile. Throughout this weary 
worldly jaunt I've skimped and saved and 
pared; I've done without the things I want, the 
things for which I cared. To add one large 
round dollar more to what I have in brine, I've 
made existence sad and sore, and what reward 
is mine? Why do I slave and moil and grind, 
why do I toil and spin? I'll have to leave my 
roll behind, for others to blow in. These words 
seem ever ringing loud, like some decree of 
doom: "There is no pocket in a shroud, no 
cashbox in a tomb. " When I no longer am 
alive, but sleeping 'neath the sod, some learned 
attorney will arrive, and hook on to my wad. 



[46 1 



II 




PROMOTED 

* T RUFUS JINKS is stepping high, the light 
J • of pride is in his eye, and peace is 
throned upon his brow, for he's become a 
granddad now." The local paper printed this, 
concerning Rufus and his bliss. I said, "Per- 
haps that old galoot will now set up a good 
cheroot, since this promotion he has won, and 
is the grandsire of a son." I found him at 
the corner store, where he was seated, glum 
and sore. He didn't prance around with glee, 
or show new brands of ecstasy. "I am not 
filled with gaudy pride, but feel like twenty 
cents," he sighed. "I've always held that I 
was young, until this new born babe was 
sprung; now such pretensions are no use; 
posterity has cooked my goose. When 'Grand- 
dad* is your given name, you might as well 
forsake the game; though you may try, you 
can't begin to make folks think you're not all 
in. It is no use glad clothes to wear; it is no 
use to dye my hair; it is no use for me to say 
how like a colt I feel today. The town would 
merely grin and scoff, for all men see where I 
get off. I bend beneath this worst of strokes, 
and will not pass around the smokes." 



[47] 





PESSIMISM 



**"\/OU*RE buying trouble when you buy a 
1 car," the old man said, his gloomy face 
ajar. "I'd rather walk, as walked my patient 
sires, than stand in mud and fuss with busted 
tires. Whene'er you travel in your four-wheeled 
boat, all things conspire to bear away your 
goat. Your engine balks, your brakes refuse to 
hold, your cooling system will not keep things 
cold. You find new grief no matter where you 
roam; you must hire mules to haul your tumbril 
home." "Oh, sage," I said, "what is there on 
this earth that won't bring grief, however great 
its worth? You drive a horse, when you would 
journey hence, and now and then it kicks you 
through a fence. You have a wife, whom 
doubtless you adore, but now and then she 
makes your spirit sore. You like good grub, 
but when you eat too much, your crippled 
stomach clamors for a crutch. Why cut out 
honey, if we like it, friend, because the bee is 
loaded at one end? Go to, old man! Though 
all the dotards dote, he is a chump who does 
not own a boat!" 



[48 1 



it 



RELIEF COMING 

1 1 ' I 'HE winds are blustering and rough, the frost 
jL keeps at it, steady; a little winter is enough, 
you've had your share already. You're tired 
of winter, grim and drear, you're tired of all 
his poses. Cheer up I The spring will soon be 
here, with nightingales and roses! You're tired 
of blowing in your roll that you may keep from 
freezing, for cords of wood and tons of coal — 
it surely isn't pleasing. You're tired of toiling 
day by day, to feed the hungry heaters. Cheer 
up! The spring is on the way, with meadow 
larks and skeeters! You're tired of falling half 
a block, when streets with ice are slippy; you're 
tired of cleaning snowy walks, and other labors 
dippy. You fain would sound a note of grief, 
with cymbals, timbrels, cornets. Cheer up! 
The spring will bring relief, and bobolinks and 
hornets. Cheer up! Though gloomy be the 
day, the darkest day will vanish; there's some- 
thing traveling our way that will our troubles 
banish. Today may be a thing of dread — 
we're banking on tomorrow; there's always 
something just ahead that's bound to knock out 
sorrow. 



[49 1 





UNRELIABLE 



"y^^N James P, Jinks you can't depend — ^he 
V>/ doesn't keep his word. " This is the 
punkest recommend that any man has heard. 
The delegate with that renown can't find 
much work to do; whenever he appears 
in town, employers cry out "Shoo." I hired 
a youth whose name is Charles, to help me 
bale some hay; to bind the deal I paid him 
arles, he said he'd come next day. But never 
did that youth appear, which made my life- 
blood boil; he went a-fishing in the mere, 
and passed up honest toil. He comes to me 
when days are flown, and hits me for a job, 
but evermore I turn him down, the piker and 
the swab. He comes to me when tempest 
blows, and asks me for a pie, but I've no 
charity for those on whom one can't rely. I 
hire a youth named Bennie Bird to ply the 
saw and sperthe, for lads who do not keep their 
word are of but little worth. The down-and- 
outs are mostly men who this false system 
played; who broke and broke, and broke again 
the promises they made. 



r 50 ] 



gl 



TIMES CHANGE 




THE other day I bought a hen, which fowl 
the butcher tossed me, and I was pained and 
startled when I found out what it cost me. Just 
eighty cents it set me back, that chicken thin 
and scrawny; with wails I filled the butcher's 
shack, and tore my whiskers tawny. "When I 
was young," I sternly cried, "and lived three 
miles from Wooster, one-third that sum, dog- 
gone your hide, would buy a hen or rooster. 
Then for a dollar one could buy all kinds of 
goods and chattels, a fowl, a parasol, a pie, and 
divers baby rattles." "When you were young," 
the butcher said, "a man would work like 
thunder, and when at night he crawled to bed, 
he'd earned but little plunder. I have no doubt 
your father deemed a dollar big as blazes; too 
wonderful and great it seemed for any human 
phrases. You take in ten where he drew one, 
and yet, when buying chickens, because your 
plunk won't buy a ton, you grumble like the 
dickens." And then, because his heart was 
sore, he wept a briny river, and with my person 
mopped his floor, and smote me with a liver. 



[Bl] 







IN THE FALL 




IN the Fall Tired Father's fancy gravely turns 
to thoughts of coal, and he sheds nine kinds 
of briny as he sizes up his roll. He has thirty- 
seven dollars — two of them are plugged with 
zinc — and the outlook for the winter is ex- 
tremely on the blink. And he hears the children 
clamor for a lot of winter duds, and his wife 
makes requisition for some bacon and some 
spuds; and his lovely grown-up daughter wants 
no poverty in hers — she must have a stylish 
bonnet and a costly set of furs, and the son will 
need some money as he studies for the bar; 
thirty-seven hard-earned dollars won't take 
Father very far. Father has so many problems 
that his hair has fallen out, yet it's safe to bet 
a kopeck on that patient, dauntless scout. Some- 
how he will buy the bacon, somehow he'll pro- 
vide the spuds, Susan Jane will have her sables, 
and the kids will have their duds; there'll be 
coal to feed the furnace, there'll be comfort in 
the shack, while Tired Father fights his battle 
with eight stitches in his back. 




[B2] 



RUBBER TIRES 

SOME soothing balm the soul requires, when 
one must fuss with rubber tires. I am a 
highly moral man; I guard my tongue the best 
I can ; and if, perchance, I cuss a streak, remorse 
lambasts me for a week. A model I would 
gladly be, to growing youth and infancy, and 
ere I got a motor car, my fame for virtue 
traveled far. But often now I may be seen, all 
bathed in sweat and gasoline, and spotted o'er 
with rancid grease, dispensing words that break 
the peace. I jack my car up with my lyre, and 
try to patch a busted tire, and while I labor in 
the ditch, I'm laughed at by the idle rich, who 
whiz along in pomp and state, and jeer the 
more unlucky skate. And as I toil with wrench 
and crank, I keep on saying, "Blinky blank," 
and children toddling on their way give ear to 
smoky things I say, and as they leave, on learn- 
ing bent, they whisper, "What a sinful gent!" 



[53] 



iS 







OLD ENGLISH 




WHEN Chaucer lived there were some other 
bards, with inspiration loaded to the 
guards. And there were highbrows in that 
distant age, who looked with scorn upon great 
Geoffrey's page, and said, "Gadzooks, he 
writeth middling fair, for one whose soul is of 
afflatus bare; as crossroads jingler he may cut 
some grass, but who'll recall him when ten years 
shall pass? If you'd read verse of great, ma- 
jestic power, you must peruse the gorgeous 
works of Gower," Now, it is true that in G. 
Chaucer's time, the critics joshed him for his 
paltry rhyme, and held that Langland, of 
"Piers Plowman" dope, had moderns skinned 
beyond all hint of hope. How vain the judg- 
ment of the critic clan! They heap their laurels 
on some ten cent man, and say his harp will 
never be unstrung, while there are men to read 
his native tongue. Their petted poet crosses 
the divide, and is forgotten ere he's fairly died, 
while some unknown, who smarted 'neath their 
jeers, lives in men's hearts through all the roll- 
ing years, 



[64] 



>X»ii(Cf\i''Vetf>ii^jf^ ,^'«i^"W*Ww«iii 



PERVERSITY 

THE doctor says that pies are harmful, I 
must eat them no more; and that is why 
they seem so charmful I'd like to eat a score. 
Before m,e there are wholesome vittles that I 
may safely try; I'll have of them no jots or 
tittles, my system shrieks for pie. I didn't much 
enjoy my smoking until the doctor came, in- 
forming me I'd soon be croaking unless I quit 
the same. Then fascinating and enchanting 
seemed my old pipe of oak, and here I'm sitting, 
yearning, panting, for something I can smoke. 
Last winter, when the boys were skating — a 
sport of which I'm fond — I, too, began 
absquatulating along the village pond. The 
boys all said I was a winner, for fluent legs are 
mine, until I saw, where ice was thinner, a big 
square "Danger" sign. I skated up to see it 
closer — ^you should have seen me sink! It took 
two blacksmiths and a grocer to drag me from 
the drink. Who cares a kopeck for a warning? 
Man to his doom inclines because he takes a 
pride in scorning all sorts of danger signs. 



[55] 



iaffigfifih^- 



i^ 




UNRULY KIDS 

I DON'T like little Albert Clarence, thougK 
he's a sprightly lad, because he won't obey 
his parence, his mother and his dad. This 
Clarence boy is strangely gifted, he is no per- 
son's fool, and divers prizes he has lifted down 
at the village school. He knows what war or 
revolution distinguished every king, and when 
it comes to elocution, he makes the welkin ring. 
It sends a sort of thrill and shiver all up my 
spine and neck, when he arises to deliver 'The 
Boy and Burning Deck." In divers ologies 
excelling, in Greek he cuts much grass, and 
when it comes to hard word spelling, he cleans 
up all his class. But when his mother or his 
father remarks, "Go, hunt the eggs,** he seems 
to think it too much bother to exercise his legs. 
And when his father or his mother observes, 
"Go, feed the cat,*' he says to them, "My little 
brother is here — let him do that." There are 
no Hies on Albert Clarence, his teachers all 
agree; but kids Avho don't obey their parence 
don't make a hit with me. 



reel 




> 





SWEETEST WORDS 



"INCLOSED find check!" The sweetest 
1 words that e'er outclassed the song of 
birds! How they allay the widow's fears, and 
dry the orphan's tears! When sad and tired 
and short of kale, a letter comes by morning 
mail; like other letters it appears, with postage 
stamps and inky smears. "No doubt," we 
sigh, "it is a dun; some frantic gent is after 
mon. These beastly bills we cannot pay take 
all the sunshine from the day, and make us 
wish that we were dead, with stacks of granite 
overhead." And then, with languid hands 
we tear the envelope to see what's there, and 
out there comes a note, by heck, with these 
brave words, "Inclosed find check!" Ah, 
then we bid farewell to w^oe, and like nine 
Brahma roosters crow, and to the soft drink 
joint repair, and buy a quart of soapsuds 
there. The sun once more is cutting hay, the 
gloomy clouds are blown away, the world is 
glad that was a wreck, changed by the words, 
"Inclosed find check." 




[57] 




HIGH PRICES 



OUR forebears, whose bright shades are soar- 
ing where noble anthems swell, while here 
on earth did little roaring about H. C. of L. 
Of simple manners, they went plugging around 
the mundane scene; they had no wish to go 
chug-chugging, or burn up gasoline. To Mother 
Nature they were closer; they did not spend 
their brass, for canned provisions, with the gro- 
cer, but raised their garden sass. The barber 
seldom saw their money into his cashbox drop; 
when hair and w^hiskers got too funny, their 
wives would shear the crop. They went to 
roost at early gloaming, tired by the toilsome 
day; you never saw our grandsires roaming 
along the Great White Way. They read no 
fiction, light and shallow, they sought no movie 
shows; they greased their boots with mutton 
tallow, and wore no underclothes. If they could 
journey back from Eden, and watch us for a 
spell, they'd understand, as we went speedin', 
our fierce H, C. of L, 



«{ 



[ 58] 




m» 






PROMPT PAY 

A MAN runs up a little bill, and when it's 
due he pays it; he coughs up for the mer- 
chant's till, and no excuse delays it. Unlike the 
deadbeats and the bums, he makes a proper 
showing; the merchants bless him when he 
comes, and praise him when he's going. This 
man, in season, meets reverse, as all men strike 
disaster; and then, when empty is his purse, 
and hard luck is his master, the dealers say, 
"Buy all you wish, until your luck grows stable; 
we'll gladly trust a man, oddsfish, who pays up 
when he's able." Another man runs up a bill, 
he keeps it climbing steady; when asked to pay, 
he says, "I will, when I get good and ready." 
Though he has roubles in his belt, and other 
roubles handy, he'd rather lose his freckled pelt 
than pay up like a dandy. And when misfor- 
tune dogs his feet, and want has badly frayed 
him, and he has but his hat to eat, the mer- 
chants will not aid him. If you are building in 
your town a bad pay reputation, some day that 
rep will knock you down, and hurt like all crea- 
tion. 



[ 59] 



■ c 



<«M9>iN»n»iiwi«rtm' 




CAMPAIGN THUNDER 

MY friends, when I'm elected, the people, 
now dejected, will bid farewell to grief; 
I'll make their sorrows bubbles, to all their 
tears and troubles 1*11 bring a prompt relief. 
The people now are groaning; for justice they 
are honing, and hone for it in vain; but when I 
am elected, an end may be expected to all the 
stress and strain. The tyrant and the spoiler 
now rob the humble toiler, their feet upon his 
neck; but when I am elected the tree will be 
erected on which they'll swing, by heck! Oh, 
men with spades and axes! they burden you 
with taxes — that is the tyrants' plan ! But when 
I am elected all laws will be rejected which tax 
the working man. The rich men ride in motors; 
on foot you go, O voters, your feet all seamed 
with scars; but when I am elected this sin will 
be corrected; you'll all have choo-choo cars. 
Alas, my friends and neighbors, you're wearied 
by your labors, your strivings gall and irk; but 
when 1 am elected a change will be detected — 
no man will have to work ! 



[60] 






J 








FALL DAYS 

OH, the frost is on the pumpkin, Mary Jane; 
and the farmer hauls the fodder in his 
wain; and the ancient claybank mare has her 
•winter coat of hair, and the cows are bawling 
sadly in the rain. In the morning there's a 
nipping, eager breeze, and the edges of the 
brook begin to freeze; all the summer bloom is 
dead, and the pretty birds are sped, and I 
have rheumatic twinges in my knees. You 
have heard me in the suntimer, Mary Jane, 
you have heard me raise the dickens and com- 
plain, wishing for some winter sleet, telling 
how the sizzling heat filled my person with 
a punk, unpleasant pain. And already, with 
a sad and longing sigh, I am thinking of the 
beauties of July, and I swear by August, too; 
then the skies are bright and blue, and a 
man can sit in conafort then and fry. I'm 
opposed to Father Winter and his storm.; I 
indorse the kind of climate that is warm; when 
the nights are white with frost they increase our 
living's cost, and it's time the weather bureau 
knew reform. 



H. 



C61] 





MAN'S PLANS 

HE sat beside me by the fire, and chattered 
while I greased my lyre. "I've toiled," he 
said, "for thirty years, like Adam's team of 
brindled steers. And now that I have made my 
wad, I'll do some traveling abroad. I want to 
see this good old globe before I don a long 
white robe. My wife and I for years have 
planned a journey to the Holy Land; next year 
we'll see the storied things of w^hich the pious 
psalmist sings. And if the war shall ever cease, 
we'll jog through Italy and Greece, and see the 
Spaniard train his vine, and have a joy ride on 
the Rhine. I hope to climb the Alps and see 
the moonlight on the Zuyder Zee, and tread the 
ancient streets of Rome — but now, methinks, I 
must go home." He took his rainstick and his 
hat and vanished from my humble flat, to seek 
his home, which wasn't far; and on his way a 
motor car came up behind and climbed his 
frame, and he forever quit the game. Alas, 
poor chap! He "went abroad," and didn't 
need to take his wad. 



[62] 




SALTED DOWN 

1 SAVED five dollars every week, against the 
day that's wet and dank. Sometimes it made 
my spirit shriek, to put that plunder in the bank. 
For there were sights I longed to see, and 
junketings I wished to make; to save was such a 
strain on me, I thought my old tin heart would 
break. But Susan Jane, my thrifty wife, was 
always watching at my side ; and she would say, 
"You bet your life, you do not let the kopecks 
slide. Our strongbox must not spring a leak," 
my wife would say, in solemn tones; "and at 
the end of every week, you'll pickle five gun- 
metal bones." I used to wish that Susan Jane 
w^ere more like other wives I know, that she 
would think it safe and sane to let the coin for 
pleasure go. Then I lay down with divers ills, 
and spent three w^eary months in bed, my 
stomach full of drugs and pills, and poultices 
upon my head. We paid the druggist and the 
nurse, the doc, who brought me back to health; 
and if I dodged the village hearse, it was be- 
cause I'd saved some wealth. To every man 
there comes a day when Fortune wears a 
gloomy frown; and, while you're earning coin, 
I say, it's wise to salt some roubles down. 



[63] 





THE ANOMALY 






WHILE riding in my buzz-buzz cart, I hit 
Bill Wax and spoiled his frame, and 
knocked his marrow-bones apart, and he re- 
marked, "I was to blame I" I said, "This dark 
disaster. Bill, to my sad life new sorrow lends; 
I do not run my car to kill or mutilate my 
dearest friends. I'll pay the surgeon if he'll 
fix the bones I've broken, rent and bowed; and 
if you journey o'er the Styx, I'll see you have a 
Palm Beach shroud." "It was my fault," I 
heard him say, "and you don't have to pay a 
cent, for I was walking like a jay, and wasn't 
looking where I went. I busted every rule, I 
think, which ought to govern gents on foot, 
and now you've put me on the blink, I 
think a while I should stay put." Bill Wax 
shines brighter than a star; Bill Wcix deserves 
immortal fame; he says the owner of a car is 
not in every case to blame I Hereafter, as I 
tour the town, in my new car that swiftly hies, 
I'll always try to run him down in preference to 
other guys. 



[64 J 



■.'.■if^issfwssimjn-K 



■ 'r'^-iZ^ 




GHOSTS 



«^ 



O 



FTEN when I cannot sleep, in my dark and 
_ quiet room, ugly phantoms round me 
creep, grinning at me in the gloom. Oft they 
come in grisly bands, to my sorrow and my 
shame, beckoning with fleshless hands, clank- 
ing chains and breathing flame. Many sin- 
ful things I've done, in the days that are gone 
by; that advantage might be won, I have 
sprung the vicious lie. Adding to this wad 
of mine, I've been tricky, mean and low, and 
I skinned a learned divine in a horse trade, 
long ago. In my scheming for the kale, at 
no trifles would I stop ; when I had some spuds 
for sale, all the biggest were on top. I ve 
committed many crimes; I confess it, now I m 
gray; I have voted seven times on the same 
election day. And when sleep from me re- 
cedes, and I lie in bed awake, ghosts of all 
these evil deeds come and fill me with an 
ache. Man of his achievements boasts, of 
the "killings" he has made; but he can't es- 
cape the ghosts — spectres which are never laid. 



r 65 ] 



OLD TIMERS 

WHEN old men meet they ask for news of 
friends they used to know. "Say, what's 
become of Hiram Hughes?" "The anthrax 
laid him low." "Well, what's become of Wil- 
liam Bill, and what's become of Fred?" "They 
both are sleeping on the hill, and each is doubly 
dead." "Why, truly, friend, if these things be, 
we're pretty much alone; but where is Silas J. 
McGee?" "He sleeps beneath the stone," "I 
used to know a lovely maid, whose name was 
Julia Jones." "She's resting in the willow's 
shade, out in the place of bones." No wonder 
that the old are bent beneath their weight of 
gloom; they cannot gossip worth a cent and not 
bring in the tomb. Mirth to their discourse 
they would lend, and cheerfully behave, but 
when they ask about a friend they hear about 
the grave. "Oh, what's become of Jim and 
Joe, and Nell and Bess and Jane?" "They 
died the death long years ago, and dead they 
still remain," 



[66] 




BURROS 

THE burros lazily infest the mountain 
regions of the West. You see them on the 
dizzy trails, with drooping ears and switching 
tails; and as they climb the rocky steep, they 
all seem walking in their sleep. The world has 
many mournful things, that walk on legs or fly 
on wings; the moping owl seems so depressed 
it gives you fantods in your breast; the cross- 
eyed jackal sits and howls more dismally than 
all the owls. The circus clown has won renown 
as being utterly cast down. But if you'd see 
the soul of woe, pack up your thermos flasks 
and go, out to some rugged western place, and 
look a burro in the face. There you will find, 
beneath those ears, the sorrow of a million 
years. I wondered why he looked so sad, when, 
in a Colorado grad, I first beheld him packing 
round a dame who weighed two hundred 
pound. But soon I knew; where'er he wends, 
a gale of merriment ascends, and dreary jokes 
assail his ears and fill his patient eyes with 
tears. No beast can be a standing jest, and 
find in life much joy or zest. 



r 67 1 





KNOWING THE WORST 





EVERY morning John, the granger, looked 
with sadness on his corn, for it was in 
deadly danger, by the hot winds seared and 
torn. Through the weary weeks he'd tilled it — 
only nightfall made him stop — hoping by his 
toil to build it into something like a crop. It 
was perishing for water, and the heavens leaked 
no more; every day was fiercer, hotter, than the 
day that went before. And it seemed to John 
the granger, as he watched his corn crop go, 
that henceforth he'd be a stranger to all things 
but grief and woe. But when once suspense 
was ended, and he knew the crop was gone, 
"Next year's crop may well be splendid, and 
I'll bank on that," said John. 'Two bad years 
don't come together — that would be too fierce, 
gadzooksl So next year we'll have such 
weather as we read about in books." Thus 
the buoyant, hopeful mortal rises when the 
worst is known, to surprise you with a chortle 
when you're looking for a groan. 



[68] 



THE GRUNTER 

IF you're complaining of your task, and sigh 
ing as you labor, I greatly fear you'll never 
bask in Easy street, my neighbor. The world 
is seeking willing hands to keep its pulleys 
turning; it will pass up the gent who stands, 
for soft employment yearning. The man who 
drops away behind, who cannot make the 
riffle, keeps talking of the dreary grind, and all 
that sort of piffle. The man who gayly does 
his work, pretending to enjoy it, who, be his 
tool a spade or dirk, will cheerfully employ it, 
who, though he may be feeling dead, will 
never make confession, is he who marches s.t 
the head of industry's procession. The man 
who grunts whene'er he swings his fountain pen 
or hammer, who never smiles and never sings, 
or makes a cheerful clamor, who never will 
consent to hump until he sees his wages, will 
land some morning at the dump, and there he'll 
stay for ages. 




i 



[69] 




MAKING GOOD 

I BOUGHT an ax of Ezra Wax, who said to 
me, "Now, sonny, if it's no good at chop- 
ping wood, come back and get your money. 
If I sell junk that turns out punk, the buyer is 
no loser; I'll make it good, as dealers should — 
I'm that sort of a snoozer." With that new ax 
I took some whacks at divers kinds of lumber; 
the edge was spoiled, and I was roiled, and 
said things without number. I took the ax to 
Ezra Wax, and showed him it was pewter, and 
for an hour, with wrathful power, I roared like 
baseball rooter. My spiel he heard; without a 
word, he handed me a new one; an ax so neat, 
so bright, so sweet, a keen one and a true one I 
Said Ezra Wax, "You bet your yaks, warthogs 
and dromedaries, that I make good, as dealers | 

should — my system never varies!" I buy my j 

tacks of Ezra Wax, my wringers and my ^ 
whistles, my hoes and rakes and oil meal cakes, 
my seed of grass and thistles. He would not 
break the pledge he'd make, or tramp a prom- 
ise under, so I make tracks to Ezra Wax for 
every kind of plunder. 



[70] 



) • 




44r-i^>yw**i-i*»-i f;i .' 



ROOT OF EVIL 

WHEN I have got a goodly wad, I say that 
wealth's an empty gawd, a cheap, delud- 
ing snare; with fluent tongue and aspect wise, 
I sf ind around and moralize, and roast the 
millionaire. I look with sorrow and disdain on 
those who sweat and strive and strain to get 
another plunk; I tell them money is but dross, 
a sordid dream, a total loss, a worthless lot of 
junk. But when I've had some small reverse, 
that makes my roll look sick, or worse, on 
lucre I am bent; I hustle till I melt my fat, and 
you may see me break a slat, to nail another 
cent. Forgotten all the platitudes that I dis- 
pensed in lofty moods, in times when I was 
flush; forgotten all the moral saws, and every 
text that ever was, as I pursue the cush. And 
when I've made a roll again, I sternly lecture 
weary men, and chide them for their greed, for 
striving for the picayune, and say the trail be- 
hind them's strewn with morals gone to seed. 




ansMBsaBrnw 




THE SPEED FIEN: 



THEY dread my coming, east and west, and 
north and south they dread me, and if my 
person they possessed, no doubt they would 
behead me. Along the country roads I go, 
still striving to go faster, and every other mile 
or so I spring some small disaster. To beat all 
records, west and east, it is for that I hanker! 
And here and there 1 kill a priest, and here and 
there a banker. I'm worse than lightning's 
lurid breath; I am the scourge titanic; I'm 
battle, murder, sudden death; my other name 
is panic. With Azrael I deftly work, to fill the 
churchyard acre; and here and there I slay a 
clerk, and here and there a baker. I am a 
threat to all who drive their motor wagons 
sanely; by care they try to keep alive, and free 
from wounds, but vainly. I whiz around a 
corner sharp, and grind such people under; and 
while my victim draws a harp, I scorch along 
like thunder. To all who in this valley jog, I 
bring the last trump closer; and here I spoil a 
pedagogue, and there I bag a grocer. 



[72] 








CONTENTMENT 

CONTENTMENT isn't often seen where men 
have bundles of long green. The more a 
man requires, it seems, the more does worry 
haunt his dreams, and every millionaire I know 
looks like a cheap tintype of woe. I have a 
friend who once was broke; then he considered 
life a joke; he filled the air with gladsome 
song, and no one laughed so loud or long. It 
w^as a joy to meet him then; he was a tonic to 
sad men. But fortune slipped around, by 
stealth, and loaded him with unearned wealth. 
He comes to see me now and then — I wish 
he'd never come again — and talks so much of 
dole and gloom, of properties that ceased 
to boom, of plants requiring ready cash, 
investments which have gone kersmash, the 
grief that capital endures, the grief no 
legislature cures — he talks so much along 
this line, and puts up such a bitter whine, 
that when he leaves my humble door my feet 
are chilled, my heart is sore. Your wealth will 
buy a lot of things; all kinds of luxuries it 
brings, but you can't take it to the mart, and 
buy a glad, contented heart. 



m 



[73] 



• j'.-.i.M-', -.X ;-r Tk^ttw;,': ♦i*,.vy'". '"•,■»«■* 




S 



tt>iga;.agaitii&'iaat*«aaaa.»n3tnwia«jaap rrnv^ 




THE BEGGAR 



THE snow will soon be flying, the snow we 
love so w^ell; in drifts it will be lying along 
the hazel dell. The brawling winds will grip 
us, and give our ears a biff, the morning frost 
will nip us, and make our whiskers stiff. But 
we who toiled and panted preparing for this 
time, are cheerful and enchanted to see the 
snow and rime. And now there is a comer to 
every worker's door — the man who loafed all 
summer, and dodged the useful chore. The 
man who lounged and idled, hard by the vil- 
lage kirk, and who in anger bridled, when he 
w^as asked to work. In ancient, chestnut 
phrasin's, he asks for things to chaw, for liver- 
wurst and raisins, for pumpkin pies and slaw. 
His kids, in countless numbers, are suffering for 
bread; his aunts are robbed of slumbers be- 
cause they have no bed. The same old 
whiskered story, you've heard for years and 
years, told by a sinner hoary, with alligator 
tears! He profits by your bounty, you give 
him tripe and tea, and wonder why the county 
won't feed such skates as he. 



r 74 ] 





PROGRESSIVE PIETY 

THE old-time brimstone preacher, when once 
he waded in, said every human creature 
was loaded down with sin. Beneath his tower- 
ing steeple, in bitter, scathing terms, he roasted 
all the people, and said we were but worms. 
This poor old earth we cumbered, according 
to his rede, and when our days were numbered, 
we'd have some grief, indeed. The hymns 
that we were singing were of the same grim 
style, such lines as this one springing: "Where 
only man is vile." We all of us were lepers, 
the baby and the dame, the cripples and high 
steppers — all soaked in sin and shame; the 
lovely girls were ditto, their beauty was a snare, 
and none of us were fit to pack liver to a bear. 
But nowadays the preacher is willing to confess 
that man is quite a peach, or, at least, a great 
success. The learned and reverend thriller no 
longer says I'm vile, or calls me caterpillar, or 
worm, or crocodile. 



t75] 





I HOPE some day to write a song that will 
astonish all the throng on this old planet 
groping; but meanwhile, since 1 have to buy 
the children lids and shoes and pie, I'll take it 
out in hoping. I often think if I had time to 
put my best into a rhyme, John Milton would 
look faded; but writing doggerel that pays 
takes up the passing hours and days, and keeps 
me worn and jaded. I don't suppose I'll ever 
pen the ode that will astonish men, and bring 
me Shakespeare's laurels; and as of old my 
ink shall flow, expounding lessons all men 
know, and bargain counter morals. But when 
all day I've lyred and lyred, until I'm frazzled 
out and tired, it's pleasant to sit dreaming of 
that far day when I shall write an ode so full 
of force and light, the critics will be screaming. 
And thus your dream is soothing you, though 
you may know it won't come true, this side the 
river Jordan; it's good to have some kind of 
goal; and so, for duds and grub and coal, you 
struggle on accordin'. 



r 



[76] 




I HEARD the down-and-outer say, "I'm 
canned because I'm old and gray. Employ- 
ers shoo me from their doors; they want young 
men to do their chores. I know I'm long on 
sterling worth, but there's no place for me on 
earth, no job for me beneath the moon, for I 
was born some years too soon. Youth must be 
served, and age must slide down where the 
dump is yawning wide." I've often heard this 
dismal spiel from gents panhandling for a meal, 
but in my daily walks I find that old boys do 
not fall behind, if they still keep their smiles on 
straight, and keep their habits up to date. Too 
many old men sing this song, that every mod- 
ern thing is wrong. They're always talking of 
the past, and so they're also-rans at last. A 
man's gray hair will cut no grass, if he can 
make things come to pass, if he will blithely do 
his stunt with cheerful and undaunted front. 



ii 



■9/ 



[77] 



jiaaas; 




"\/OUR money back if things don't suit," 
1 our grocer says, in all his ads; but when 
I bought some wormy fruit, for which I paid 
my hard-earned scads, he did not cheerfully 
refund; his whiskers he began to comb, and 
tightened up his cummerbund, and talked until 
the cows came home. "Those prunes," he 
said, in heated terms, "were fresh when taken 
from the shelf," implying that I put the worms 
into the doggone prunes myself. I pulled his 
ears and tweaked his nose, and said, "We'll 
just forget those prunes, but never more, till 
life shall close, will I spend here my picayunes." 
A lot of merchants make that bluff, "Your 
money back, if things don't please," but when 
you call to get the stuff, they hand you out the 
same old wheeze. But now and then a mer- 
chant bold makes good and never bats a glim; 
you say that man's as good as gold, and name 
your infant after him. 



[78] 





THE WATCH 



MY watch wouldn't work worth a dime, it 
was always a fortnight too slow; instead 
of recording the time, it monkeyed around, to 
and fro. The mainspring seemed out of repair, 
it traveled by spasms and jerks; so I sat me 
right down in a chair, and studied the watch 
and its works. I took it apart with a wrench, 
and studied the levers and gears, all piled in a 
heap on a bench; I studied and wiggled my 
ears. I put the wheels back in the case, and 
shook them to give them a shock; but the 
hands didn't go round the face, and the works 
didn't tick nor yet tock, I asked of the plumber 
advice, and counsel I asked of the judge, con- 
sulted the dealer in ice — and still the blamed 
works wouldn't budge. "Methinks," I re- 
marked, "and I wist, I must go to the jeweler's 
shop." He gave it three twists of the wrist, 
and the watch went along like a top. That 
plan's kept me down in the past — a plan that is 
doubtless the worst; I always reserve till the 
last the thing I should tackle at first. 



H 




[79 ] 




THE MODEL KID 

HOW sweet the child who says, "I will," 
when weary father cries, "I wish you'd 
take an ax and kill about a million flies!" The 
child who's active to obey, who heeds, with 
cheerful brow, whatever Pa or Ma may say, is 
worth more than a cow. I have a pair of young 
galoots, and when I bid them work, they 
answer me, "You bet your boots," and never 
think to shirk. I say to them, "Go rake the 
leaves from off the lawn today" ; they get their 
rakes and neither grieves that he must quit his 
play. I say to them, "Go paint the pump, and 
mow the priceless grass," and they go to it 
on the jump, and hand me back no sass. For 
such a wholesome brace of kids, it is a joy to 
toil, to buy them underwear and lids, and cake 
and castor oil. How sharper than a serpent's 
tooth, how worthless and how bad, is that un- 
seemly, graceless youth, who won't obey his 
dad! For him the world will hold no prize, 
the dump will be his bourne; he'll live unloved, 
and when he dies, no soul in town will mourn. 




r 80 1 



■'•"*3a;««iK!5«^^Kt?''VJi.wr?. 



■Ml 



vfU' 




THE SAFE DRIVER 



ALONG the street I drive my car, my rate of 
L speed is safe and slow. I pull up where 
the children are, and give pedestrians a show^. 
Some day pedestrians will be, by statute, from 
our highways cast, for any candid man must 
see that they're a nuisance, first and last. But 
since they are permitted here, in spite of mo- 
torists' appeals, I hold it wise my car to steer 
so they won't get beneath the wheels. I watch 
the street where'er I go, and dodge all live 
stock gone astray, and toot my horn that men 
may know my juggernaut is on the way. The 
road rules 1 have all by heart — I learned the 
whole blamed list, complete, and no man ever 
sees my cart upon the wrong side of the street. 
And while I exercise such care, w^hile modestly 
my motor hums, along the teeming thorough- 
fare some badly locoed speed fan comes. He 
knocks the sawdust from some gent who hasn't 
time to climb a tree, and then, without or with 
intent, he slams his car right into me. I say, 
when from the dismal wreck I climb, and 
realize the worst, 'The man who gets it in the 
neck, is he who swears by Safety First!" 



[«i ] 



SHWSflfMSW'^tii/v. -i^- ■ 




THE BANK ACCOUNT 



OH, happy day when I began to put my 
doubloons down in brine! While you with 
fear the future scan, a soul serene and calm is 
mine. Long was I slammed around by Fate, 
the dregs of sorrow oft I drank, before I got 
my head on straight, and put some guilders in 
the bank. I used to blow my money in as fast 
or faster than 'twas earned, and one could fill 
a good large bin with iron dollars that I 
burned. I blew in every kind of pelf, the 
mark, the kopeck and the franc, before I 
tumbled to myself, and put my moidores in the 
bank. And then I always lived on prunes, was 
up against the ragged edge, until, to salt down 
my doubloons, I made a large brass-mounted 
pledge. Since then on rosy paths I tread, and 
merrily I whoop and yell; I do not fret, I do 
not dread the dreary old H. C. of L. I buy my 
car new rubber tires, and pour rich gas into 
its tank; he has all things that he desires, who 
puts his rupees in the bank. 




[82] 



l«WTvWS»«fl!l«f^^v*€ft'WfCT^VfeflKTWf»*?o*-Tfc»*^^ . 




FUTURE DEEDS 



SWEET friend of mine, it doesn't pay to tell 
of things you will achieve; the golden era 
is today; and promises too oft deceive. "To- 
morrow I will cut much grass, tomorrow prizes 
will be won." Tomorrow! But today, alas, 
goes by and you have nothing done. Tomor- 
row is a vision dim, that makes the dreamer's 
heart feel good. Today the man of sense and 
vim goes forth and saws three cords of wood. 
Today we know we are alive, our bones and 
thews obey our will ; it is our privilege to strive, 
and put some kopecks in the till. Tomorrow, 
when the madding crowds of workers 
throng along the pave, we may be wearing 
jaunty shrouds, all neatly dolled up for the 
grave. The things I've done may count a bit, 
and gain some measure of applause, when I 
this daily round have quit, when I have crossed 
my pulseless paws. The lofty ends that I 
pursue won't make a record till they're won; 
the things that I intend to do, will never count 
until they're done. And so, my friend, again 
I say — and, saying it, I'm strangely moved — 
the golden era is today; don't let it vanish 
unimproved. 



83 




>■■■■—■ ■■— —— 



OUR DESTINATION 




THE poorhouse has no Persian rugs, no 
costly chandeliers; and there we'll dwell 
and chase the bugs in our declining years. On 
bread and meat and spuds and pie there's an 
unholy price; the cost of coal has gone so high 
the poor are burning ice. The butchers used 
to give away the liver of the cow; today they 
wrap it up and say, "Cough up a quarter now." 
The poorhouse has no movie stage, no joyous 
minstrel troupe; and there we'll spend our 
wintry age, and live on cabbage soup. When 
o'er the daily sheet we glance, we drop it with 
a frown; the price of everything's advanced, 
and nothing has gone down. The printer 
howls because his stock more precious is than 
gems; the tailor wets with tears the frock 
which drearily he hems. Man wears his sweater 
in his bed, because he has no shift, and cries 
aloud, while seeing red, "Oh, whither do we 
drift?" The poorhouse has no plutocrats, no 
closed or open cars; and there we'll dwell and 
swat the rats until we climb the stars. 




[84] 





'V'*"r.>^is4*»»SAV!4M-«iC(*«a[ 




HAPPINESS 

MY neighbor Johnsing can afford a lot of 
things that I can not; yet I'm not envious 
or bored, beneath my collar I'm not hot. My 
neighbor Johnsing has a roll that's large enough 
to choke a steer; I contemplate him, and my 
soul is smiling still, from ear to ear. For one 
thing is supremely true — as some one said, in 
ringing tones — that happiness has naught to 
do with what a human being owns. Old Mas- 
ters hung upon the wall won't bring a nickel's 
worth of bliss. The rich man, in his gilded 
hall, is always saying things like this: "The 
gladdest time I ever spent, was when I lived 
in yonder shack, and had to husband every 
cent, to buy suspenders for my back." I like 
to have enough to eat, I like to have some 
clothes to wear, and caskets for my shapely 
feet, and gasoline to feed the mare. I like to 
feel, in dismal times, upon the day that's wet 
and dank, that I have half a dozen dimes in 
storage in the village bank. Let neighbor 
Johnsing view his roll, through tears that make 
his vision dim; I wouldn't touch it with a pole, 
when seeing what it's done for him. 



[ 85] 





SLOW BUT SURE 



^■1 



THE delegate who's slow but sure is nearly 
always sadly poor. I hire some fellows, 
then and now, to mow the lawn or sheer the 
cow, to shovel snow or whack up wood, and 
"Slow but Sure" is not much good. It puts a 
wire edge on my nerves to watch the slow 
man's languid curves, to see him stand around 
perplext, as doubting what he should do next. 
I pay him, when he's done, his yen, but do not 
hire that man again, if I need help to mow the 
grass, or cultivate the garden sass. He may 
be sure, but he's too slow; when he is weaving 
to and fro, you have to line him with a post, 
to see which one is moving most. The man 
who wishes to arrive, must show the village 
he's alive. When he is going anywhere, his 
coat tails flap the balmy air; however humble 
be his grind, he leaves a trail of dust behind. 
In every action, every step, he shows that he is 
full of pep. Employers seek that hustling gent, 
in whom such shining traits are blent. His 
energy allures, enchants. We let him wed 
our maiden aunts. 



[86] 







SPRING THOUGHTS 



A MAN grows sick of the walls of brick, and 
the city's endless roar, when old winter 
goes, with its frosts and snows, and the spring- 
time's at the door. His soul rebels at the 
city's smells, and he says to himself, says he, 
"There are banks of thyme with a scent 
sublime, and the woodland's calling me!" His 
soul revolts at the jars and jolts that the urban 
dweller knows, at his sordid task, when he 
longs to bask in the glen where the cowslip 
grows; and he says, "Gee whiz! I am tired of 
biz, and sick of the sights I see, of the stress 
and strain for a tawdry gain, when the wood- 
land's calling me!" In all human lives, when 
the spring arrives, there riseth the wanderlust; 
and a fellow's dreams are of woods and 
streams, and the long road white with dust. 
And he heaves a sob as he views his job, from 
which he won't dare to flee; and he says, "By 
Hoyle! It is hard to toil, when the woodland's 
calling me!" 



[ 87] 



■smmttB'i^ssaauataawiKri. 



A.. 



UNAPPRECIATIVE MAN 

"TV /fY husband," sighed the weeping wife, 
iVl "has made a ruin of my life. He does 
not seem to yearn or long for Higher Things, 
like Art and Song. The sordid things to him 
appeal; he'd rather have a good square meal, 
than sit with me through dreamful days, recit- 
ing Robert Browning's lays. A noble painting 
on the wall makes no appeal to him at all; 
with scorn he'll pass the picture by, and say 
he'd rather have a pie. Because the bread is 
always hard, because his porterhouse is 
charred, because the coffee's weak and thin, 
he'll make a most unseemly din. He can't be 
made to realize that noble odes beat oyster 
fries, that Ibsen's pen, surcharged with ink, 
surpasses sausage in the link, that Handel's 
grand harmonic burst beats Schweitzer cheese 
or liverwurst. So here 1 sit upon the floor, and 
weep and wail forevermore. " 



[88] 




THE POOR LISTENER 

I SIT in the grocery store, discoursing of cur- 
rent events, each eve, when my labors are 
o'er, with other industrious gents. We talk of 
the scrapping in France, discuss the high prices 
of hay; and each gives the others a chance to 
say what they suffer to say. When Johnson 
unlimbers his jaws, we listen politely to him; 
when Jimpson stands up for his cause, we 
cheer his remarks with a vim. There's peace 
in that grocery store, each orator feels at his 
best, till Kickshaw, the champion bore, comes 
in to take part in the fest. This man, with his 
head full of wheels, too oft in our presence 
has sinned; he wants to make all of the spiels, 
to furnish the bulk of the wind. That's why 
we old fellows arose, last night, at the grocery 
store, and lifted that chump with our toes, and 
hoisted him clear through the door. Free 
speech is a blessing to men, without it no race 
can advance; but talkers should pause now 
and then, and give other fellows a chance. 





89 ] 





CONVALESCENCE 

WHEN one's been lying sick in bed, with 
plaster casts upon his head, and poultices 
upon his feet, recovery seems, oh, so sweet! 
The doctors, round my couch of straw, have 
plied the squirtgun and the saw; for weary 
days, that endless seemed, I tied myself in 
knots and screamed, for every ache that has a 
name held wassail in my stricken frame, and 
many aches not classified whizzed through my 
sinews and my hide. At last I fell into a 
sleep, an old-time slumber, rich and deep, and 
when I woke my form was free from every 
brand of agony. 'Tis at a crucial time like 
this, when full of convalescent bliss, a fellow 
feels how great is health — far greater than the 
"whole w^orld's wealth. And he can clearly 
realize how dippy, batty and unw^ise, it is to 
sacrifice that boon, to gain another picayune. 
A million men, you may observe, are straining 
every bone and nerve, year after year, to add 
one more gun-metal dollar to their store. Some 
day they'll be where I have been, with poul- 
tices from feet to chin, and when they lie in 
solitude, and o'er their years of folly brood, 
they'll say, as I am saying yet, that health's the 
one and only bet. 



[90] 



''■;i-3i>\'ia£i^M^3i'- ^■i.o^Tstens^-xmi^ 




w 



CARELESSNESS 



I STRIKE a match upon my boot, and ligKt 
my three-for-five cheroot, then throw the 
match away. "The fire fiend snorted through 
the town, and burned our finest buildings 
down," the morning papers say. I suck an 
orange as I talk, and drop the peel upon the 
walk, then journey to my flat; a friend steps 
on that peel of mine, and breaks a gallus and a 
spine, an ankle and a slat. I scrubbed the 
cellar stairs with pep, then left the pail upon a 
step, and went to groom the cow; my aunt 
went down to get some jell; she stumbled o'er 
that pail and fell, and spoiled her queenly 
brow. I'm always doing thoughtless tricks, 
which bring dire grief to other hicks, and fill 
them with alarm; and when I've made some 
dizzy break, I say, "Twas merely a mistake — I 
surely meant no harm." But being sorry 
doesn't cure the griefs my victims must endure, 
and now and then they rise, brush my 
apologies aside, and make som.e punctures in 
my hide, and black my starry eyes. 



[91] 



1 ^sjbl.>g^flj :Ja3ffla>;^''^^^4>»^K^«B 4Ma«rBB»a<B l^Bza3a■s^a^^ 

- T 





'■i^«» 



T i-i'J*'T7fti 



LEARNING THE AUTO 



I'M learning the automobile; as, trembling, I 
sit at the wheel, and steer her along, through 
the hurrying throng, how nervous and awkward 
I feel I I jolt people out of their lids, I run over 
chickens and kids; a spurt she will throw when 
I want to go slow, she scampers, skedaddles 
and skids. I sweat, and I'm weak in the knees, 
when swift around corners she flees, she 
whimpers and whirs and she gurgles and purs, 
and runs into fences and trees. My courage 
she constantly damps by running down bow- 
wows and tramps; she collided today with a 
big heavy dray, and busted her fenders and 
lamps. I drive her around for an hour, this 
engine of terrible power; wherever I stray, on 
my death-dealing way, of feathers and fur 
there's a shower. At night, when I go to my 
bed, fierce nightmares abide in my head; I 
dream my new truck is just running amuck, 
and leaving a windrow of dead. I run over 
chickens and goats, I run over roosters and 
shotes; and oft, in my dream, do I raucously 
scream, "My auto is feeling her oats I" 



I 



, 



[92] 




POPULATION 

PRUNE CENTER is a hustling town. For 
liveliness it has renown. The leading 
boosters stand and crow, "Just watch our 
population grow!" All new arrivals have 
their charms; they're welcomed there with 
open arms. All sorts of cheap and worthless 
lads, the deadbeats from the other grads, the 
loafers who, for vagrant ways, have drawn 
ten dollars or ten days, who'll work the town 
for grub and coal — just so they sw^ell the 
census roll, they're welcomed with a hip- 
hooray, and told to camp right down and 
stay. If I were owner of a town, and wished 
to give it high renown, I'd see that no one 
settled there, without a record clean and fair. 
I'd have a censor in each street, the new^- 
arriving gents to meet, and he would warn the 
worthless skate to turn around and pull his 
freight. You don't invite the worthless dub 
to seek your home and eat your grub. Then 
why invite him to your town, and beg that he 
will settle down? 



1 ■.>.(., 

.' /Si., 



H 




[93] 







HOUSE AND HOME 

" T OWN my house, but have no home," said 
1 J. Augustus Cork, as wearily he tried to 
comb his whiskers with a fork. "My house is 
strictly up-to-date, with every modern fad, and 
visitors pronounce it great, and think I should 
be glad. An English butler buttles round, and 
wields a frozen stare; imported maids are on 
the ground, to comb my lady's hair. And I 
have works of art to burn, all swell and 
reshershay, with here a bust or Grecian urn, 
and there The Stag at Bay.' No kids along 
the hallway rush, or bump along the stair, but 
over all's a solemn hush, as though a corpse 
were there. The kids would like full well to 
romp, and raise a howdydo, but they must live 
up to our pomp and vulgar noise eschew. I 
have a house but not a home, and hence my 
air of gloom; this mansion, with its gaudy 
dome, is cheerless as a tomb. I'd like to swap 
this swell abode, with all its works of art, for 
that cheap cottage down the road, where first 
we made our start" 




[94 1 





r%} 



THE HERMIT 

OLD HUNX is a hermit and mystic, his 
manner is stately and grave, his diet is 
antiphlogistic, he spends all his years in a cave. 
"My health," he remarks, "is a wonder, al- 
though I'm as old as get-out; rheumatics don't 
pull me asunder, I have not the stringhalt or 
gout. I warble my optimist ditties, my soul's 
full of sunshine and hope; but when I resided 
in cities, I always was swallowing dope. I 
always had shingles or colic, or Bright's justly 
famous disease; the rheumatiz often would 
frolic all over my fetlocks and knees. If man 
would keep grief in the distance, and feel like 
a Percheron steer, he must lead the simple 
existence, and cut out the urban career." "Me- 
thinks," I replied, "you are paying too heavy 
a price for your bliss; while far from the bright 
lights you're staying, just think of the fun that 
you miss! I'd rather have smallpox or bunions, 
I'd rather have seven-year itch, than fill up 
with turnips and onions, and live in a cave or 
a ditch!" 




[95] 



OLD SONGS 



^^S^^^Sj 



LAST night I heard an ancient dame hum 
divers songs of bygone years, and tender 
recollections came, which filled my old green 
eyes with tears. "Oh, Birdie, I am tired now, 
I do not care to hear you sing"; thus warbled 
on the withered frau, while darning socks, like 
everything. Beneath the bright Canadian skies 
I used to sing that simple lay; folks heard my 
boyish treble rise, and wished I'd quit, or go 
away. Where are the men who cried "Shut 
up I" and promptly sicked their dogs on me, 
when I, before their wickiup, turned loose that 
song in ecstasy? The beldame by my fireside 
waits, and sings old songs to you unknown, 
as "Wait for me at heaven's gates, sweet Belle 
Mahone, sweet Belle Mahone!" I used to sing 
the same sweet song, beneath the warm 
Canadian sun, and neighbors rang the chestnut 
gong, and put more buckshot in the gun. Old 
songs! Sweet songs I They blaze the track to 
bygone days and vanished scenes, before I had 
to break my back to earn the beefsteak and the 
beans. 



[96] 




1^ 



THE LUCKLESS MAN 



I HEARD a fellow say, this morn, "I've had 
hard luck since 1 was born." Yet he was 
fixed with hands and feet, and health so good 
'twas hard to beat. While he bemoaned his 
gloomy fate, and tried to keep his grouch on 
straight, and while some maudlin tears he 
shed, an ailing cripple forged ahead, ambition 
glowing in his eyes, and gathered in a hand- 
some prize. A blind man, groping in the dark, 
in human annals made his mark. A sick man, 
toiling with his pen, produced a book that 
drew from men so loud a burst of honest praise, 
as cheered the balance of his days. A thou- 
sand brave, undaunted chaps, borne down by 
grievous handicaps, were struggling up life's 
rugged steep, too full of hopeful plans to weep. 
How pitiful the man who stands, with active 
lungs and idle hands, complaining of the luck 
he's had, since he was but a knee-high lad! 



[97 1 





t; 



THINK TWICE 

HINK twice before y6v# mail the note in 
which you give your anger vent, in which 
\ you recklessly devote yourself to skinning some 

I poor gent. For doubtless when your anger 

] cools, you'll kick your spine up through your 

f hat, and say, "I was the prince of fools to send 

\ a man such rot as that!" Think twice before 

I you pass along the scandal that you heard last 

I night; you may do some good man a wrong 

I that years of effort can't set right. And though 

1 the story true may seem, why rob a neighbor 

\ of his goat? From your own eye remove the 

i beam, before you reach for t'other's mote. 

Think twice before you jaw your wife; there 
was a time, some years ago, w^hen you de- 
clared you'd make her life as cheerful as a 
! picture show. Alas, she took you at your 

word, as damsels do, and always did; and all 
her married years she's heard her husband 
I yawping through his lid. Think twice before 

1 you do a thing your soul refuses to indorse; 

j for every wicked act will bring the certain 

penalty, remorse! 



I 98 ] 



I 




F 

•T^HEF 
1 briel 



GOOD SCOUTS 




HERE are 80*^1x1307 noble gents in this 
bright world of joy and glee, that men who 
seem like eighteen cents don't need to worry 
you or me. We do not need associates who 
are not built to put up ice, we need not mingle 
w^ith the skates who w^ould be dear at any price. 
The woods are full of splendid scouts whose 
friendship is a thing to prize, but if you herd 
with down-and-outs, you cannot to such 
friendship rise. Man must be honest, good 
and straight, if he'd have friends who' re worth 
the while; he cannot trot a crooked gait and be 
considered quite in style. The men whose 
friendship is a boon are found all o'er this 
cheerful earth; they do not give a picayune for 
anything but sterling worth. You may be poor, 
you may be bald, you may have water on the 
brain, but when you're to their circle called, 
you know you have not lived in vain. 



r 99 1 




wmm 






STOLEN OR STRAYED 




WHAT has become of the maidens fair, 
who pleased the eyes of the old-time 
swells, who made the dresses they used to wear, 
and looked as smooth as the modern belles? 
They made their gowns and they made their 
hose, they made their hats with a right good 
will; they made their quilts and such things as 
those, they sewed and darned with the 
darnedest skill. They made good bread and 
they made good pies, they made good jam 
and they made good tarts; their doughnuts 
gladdened our weary eyes, and put new vim 
in our jaded hearts. They took blue ribbons 
at county fairs, for fragrant butter in golden 
rolls; a noble pride in their skill was theirs — 
but now they're vanished, God rest their souls. 
They're past and gone to the brighter spheres, 
and no successors they left below; about one 
time in a hundred years you'll see a girl who 
can cook and sew. I like eggs soft and I get 
them hard, I like tea strong and I get it w^eak, 
the toast is burned and the steak is charred, 
and tears are glimmering on my cheek. 



[ 100] 





i»lJ-UJUlJiil« <» J-W^iu.lii- ' J!«litl «g«aggj!ili'j«^wr><OBr!!gt«ii^ 



METHUSELAH 

METHUSELAH, that grand old gent, saw 
centuries pass by; the generations came 
and went, and he refused to die. No doubt 
among the ancient ranks the faddists drew 
their breath, and he was told by health board 
cranks just how to sidestep death. 1 seem to 
see them at his side, and hear them give advice. 
"Eat predigested hay,'* they cried, "that has 
been kept on ice. Sleep out of doors, in rain 
or gale, or you'll be on the blink; boil all the 
air that you inhale, and fry the things you drink. 
Eat less than half of what you wish, put saw- 
dust in your bread; if you are fond of beef or 
fish, eat liverwurst instead." The faddists 
sprung their spiels and died; Methuselah shed 
tears, but would not take them as a guide — and 
lived nine hundred years. His voice across the 
distance calls a cheering word to me: "I ate 
ice cream and codfish balls, and was from 
sickness free. I filled myself with scrambled 
eggs, and steaks from slaughtered steers, and 
pranced around on active legs for near a thou- 
sand years." 



rioi 1 




|fiB&aB# 



THE HAS-BEENS 



I! 





1READ the papers every day, and oft en- 
counter tales which show there's hope for 
every jay who in life's battle fails. I've just 
been reading of a gent who joined the has-been 
ranks, at fifty years without a cent, or credit at 
the banks. But undismayed he buckled down, 
refusing to be beat, and captured fortune and 
renown; he's now in Easy street. Men say that 
fellows down and out ne'er leave the rocky 
track, but facts will show, beyond a doubt, that 
has-beens do come back. I know, for I who 
write this rhyme, when forty-odd years old, 
was down and out, without a dime, my whiskers 
full of mold. By black disaster I was trounced 
until it jarred my spine; I was a failure so pro- 
nounced I didn't need a sign. And after I had 
soaked my coat, I said (at forty-three), "I'll 
see if I can catch the goat that has escaped 
from me." I labored hard; I strained my dome, 
to do my daily grind, until in triumph I came 
home, my billy-goat behind. And any man 
who still has health may with the winners 
stack, and have a chance at fame and wealth — ,_^, 
for has-beens do come back. 



r 102 ] 



^^^ 




B^-X^,SS7S^ 



l^ 



y: 



JUST AS GOOD 



'OU write a book that makes a hit; it's full 
of happy phrases; and readers all refuse to 
, , quit a-singing of its praises. The novel fan 
I |f your volume buys, wherever he can strike it; 
and then the Just As Gooders rise, and write 
some books "just like it." The country's in- 
undated with your type of sparkling story; and 
Jones and Brown and Jinks and Smith are 
borrowing your glory. The Just As Gooder 
lies in wait for all who gain attention, and all 
their curves he'll emulate, with gall too fierce 
to mention. If you invent a garden gate, that 
has all others beaten, the Just As Gooder makes 
its mate before his grub he's eaten. If you 

I turn out a type of pome, you have the same 

[ old trouble; the Just As Gooder rushes home, 
! in haste to write its double. If you've a cold — 
such ailments rise, at divers tinnes, and curse 
one — the Just As Gooder sits and lies, and 
says he has a w^orse one. The Just As Gooder 
trails along, like doom, behind his betters, and 
makes a mess of Art and Song, Mechanics, 
Commerce, Letters. 



[ 103] 





BAD COOKING 

WHAT is it roughens true love's course, and 
makes men cuss till they are hoarse, and 
leads to quarrels and divorce? Bad cooking. 
What is it ruins love's young dream, and queers 
the matrimonial team, and makes the married 
life a scream? Bad cooking. What is it comes 
when women prance to euchre party and to 
dance, and leave the home at every chance? 
Bad cooking. What follows when the girls 
grow smart, and say they're w^edded to their 
Art, and learn some Ibsen junk by heart? Bad 
cooking. What happens when they play the 
harp as well as some imported sharp, instead 
of frying German carp? Bad cooking. What 
is it fills untimely graves, out where the bone- 
yard bluegrass waves, with victims of the 
kitchen knaves? Bad cooking. What is it 
drives the boys from home, in glaring, noisy 
dens to roam, and from cold steins to blow the 
foam? Bad cooking. Why are the people 
taking pills, and medicine in flowing rills, and 
always paying doctor's bills? Bad cooking. 



[ 104 ] 






THE men of simple manners please; they 
boast not of their pedigrees, or look pro- 
found, or put on side, or get swelled up with 
futile pride. The wise man's every action 
states, "I'm just like other mortal skates; I'm 
here a while to toil and spin, and try to get my 
harvest in, and when I leave this vale of groans, 
like Tom and Dick, 1*11 make dry bones." It 
gives me stitches in the side to see a man 
swelled up with pride, assuming divers foolish 
airs, and who, in every act, declares, "The clay 
I'm made of is so fine, there wasn't any more 
like mine. I was formed, one fateful day, the 
Maker threw the mold away, and said, 'Im- 
provements now shall cease — I have produced 
the masterpiece!' " When your importance 
seems so steep that all the rest of us look cheap, 
laugh at yourself a while, my friend, and let 
your affectation end. Sit down in silence and 
review the foolish things you say and do, and 
realize, with many a jar, how blamed ridiculous 
you are! 




[105] 





WORKERS 



IT'S good to work, with might and main, until 
the workday ends; it's good to work, in 
sun or rain — but do not work your friends. 
The toiler's worthy of his hire, wherever he 
may be, though he be punishing a lyre or 
chopping down a tree; though he be furrowing 
the loam, that harvests may abound, 'tis labor 
brings the bacon home, and makes the wheels 
go round. Renown for toiling with a vim the 
true distinction lends; so work until the light 
grows dim — but do not work your friends. The 
willing worker seldom sees the lean wolf at his 
door; he has his wienerwurst and cheese and 
other grub in store. Men's admiration he 
commands, no matter where he wends; he does 
his work with both his hands, but does not 
work his friends. There is no sadder, punker 
sight, in any neighborhood, than is the hu.sky, 
lazy wight who's cut out work for good. We 
all have seen his maudlin tear, have heard his 
whining tones; a guilder there, a kroner here, 
from all of us he bones. To gain a dime this 
shameless shirk to lowest depths descends; for 
when a man quits useful work, he starts to work 
his friends. 



r 106 ] 





MONEY TO LOAN 



OH, "Money to Loan" Is a common sign; it 
everywhere greets these eyes of mine. In 
twenty stairways, in this small town, the cheer- 
ful legend is hanging down. There's money to 
loan to the merchant prince when bad collec- 
tions have made him wince. There's money to 
loan to the farmer bold, who owns wide acres 
of fertile mold. There's money to loan to most 
any skate who has abundance of real estate, or 
hogs or cattle, or bonds or stocks, to be security 
for the rocks. But not a plunk, or a dollar's 
ghost, to lend to people who need it most! 
Go up those stairs, where the "Loan" sign is, 
oh, busted pilgrim with pallid phiz, and ask 
the gent you will find up there, to lend you a 
buck to relieve despair. You will hit the walk, 
when he throws you down, so hard you'll rattle 
the drowsy town. There's money to loan if 
you're cutting ice, there's money to loan if you 
have the price, but not a rouble or yen or buck 
if peradventure you're out of luck. 




[107] 





THE STO 



I LIE in bed and hear the storm cavorting on 
its path, and I secure and snug and warm, can 
laugh to scorn its wrath. The snow is drifting 
on the ground, the tall trees bend and shake, 
the wind is shrieking like a hound that has the 
stomach-ache. The pipes are freezing in the 
sink, and in the bathroom, too, and in the morn 
the plumbing gink will have to fix a few. 'Tis 
pleasant, sure, to li^ in bed, and hear the 
tempest roar, to hear it wailing overhead, and 
pounding at the door; to know the cellar's full 
of coal, the larder stocked with bread; so let 
the black northwester roll — ^you do not care 
a red. You labored when the signs were right, 
with saw or ax or plow, you brought your 
wages home at night, and gave them to the 
frau; she put the money safe away, with moth- 
balls 'twixt the bills, and now when storm fiends 
are at play, your breast with rapture thrills. 
Oh, happy is the man who saves his coin on 
sunny days ; then when the weather misbehaves, 
a whoop-la he can raise. 



[108] 





u^ i g jij riia g<i«*g«s iggftigMg«' »« *s *^ 



THE VEILED FUTURE 

WE know not what a day shall bring, what 
brand of weal or woe; so let us smile and 
let us sing, and trip fantastic toe. We may feel 
sure tomorrow's sun will hide, the whole day 
long; and when all things are said and done, 
our guesses will be wrong. We may insist that 
dark green grief tomorrow's brow will wear; 
and yet the dawn may bring relief from all the 
woes we bear. No man should look ahead and 
say, "Tomorrow is a frost, so I shall wail 
around today, and weep, and blame the cost. 
And so, as I have often said, in dirges fierce 
but brief, it's foolishment to look ahead for 
further stores of grief. It's vain to rend our 
beards and say, 'Tomorrow's charged with 
fate"; far better to enjoy today, before it pulls 
its freight. This day is ours, this cheerful 
morn; all yesterdays are dead; all other days 
are yet unborn, the stretch of days ahead. This 
day is ours, the dear, sweet thing, until it 
ambles by; so let us dance and let us sing, and 
throw our hats on high. 



[109] 






SELFISHNESS 



JIM KICKSHAW has a touring car, in which 
he journeys near and far. There's room for 
seven in the same, and Jim might bring to 
many a dame who seldom has a chance to ride, 
pure happiness ten cubits wide. But Jim would 
rather ride alone, than take some poor old gent 
or crone. He'd take a banker or some skate 
who's made a pile in real estate; he'd load his 
car with damsels fair, and still insist there's 
room to spare. He'd gladly take a joyous crew, 
to whom such rides are nothing new. But there 
are men with spavined limbs, and poor old 
dames with worn-out glims; and crippled kids 
who sit and sigh, as gorgeous cars go whizzing 
by; and mothers, tired until their hearts just 
yearn for rides in choo-choo carts; and maiden 
aunts who'd trade their hair for three long 
breaths of country air. But these will never 
ride with Jim; they're poor, and don't appeal 
to him; the men don't wear their whiskers 
straight, the women's hats are out of date, the 
kids have seedy pinafores, from rolling round 
on unwashed floors. There's nothing in it, any 
way; you haul the poor for half a day, and all 
you get for it is thanks; they have no assets in 
the banks. 

[ no ] 



w 



LOSS OF APPETITE 



WHEN Julia rang the dinner bell, I used to 
lift my voice and yell, and chortle and 
I repeat; my feet went weaving like a loom, until 

) I reached the dining room and settled down to 
\ eat. The victuals all looked good to me, the 

1 Lima bean, the spud, the pea, the fragrant 

I raisin pie; oh, every mouthful tasted sweet, 

and I would sit and eat, and eat, and watch the 
buttons fly. But since I had that last attack of 
I pink lumbago in the back, my appetite's de- 

I stroyed; the music of the dinner bell has all the 

I pathos of a knell, and life's an aching void. 

* The turnips taste just like the spuds; the coffee 

I tastes like washday suds, the meat tastes like 

I the greens; the rich imported Worcester sauce 

I reminds me of a total loss, the prunes taste like 

i the beans. The w^omen rack their heads in vain 

to think up dishes safe and sane, to tempt my 
appetite; the finest products of their skill taste 
like the anti-bilious pill that I must take at 
night. If I could only eat again, like yonder 
lean and hungry men, no cares should daunt 
my heart; I'd laugh the ills of life to scorn, and 
blithely eat an ear of corn, a cabbage and a 
tart. 



[Ill] 




,.i**i*i 



CHILDISH JOYS 



ma 1 1 I — 



AS I went forth, on my ten toes, a snowball 
hit me on the nose, and knocked that 
organ out of place, a-spreading it all o'er my 
face. "My blessing on the merry boys," I 
cried, "and on their harmless joys! I'd gladly 
sacrifice a nose, out here among the virgin 
snows, to see the children glad and gay, as I 
was on a bygone day. If I had noses by the 
score, I'd see them all bunged up and sore, if 
that would make the children glad, and this 
gray world less grim and sad." And while I 
spoke these words of cheer, a snowball hit me 
in the ear. It jarred my spinal column loose, 
and addled all my vital juice. I leaned against 
a fence and said, "What though that snowball 
split my head? Some boy was filled with utter 
glee, when he let drive that shot at me, and if 
my ruined dome of thought, some comfort to 
a kid has brought, it surely does not ache in 
vain; not futile is its grist of pain." And as I 
feebly tottered by, a snowball hit me in the eye. 




rn2i 



: 




p^ 



THE FLUTE'S LIBRARY 



OH, stately books, in handsome cases, all 
standing in their proper places, selected, 
with an artist's feeling, to match the furniture 
and ceiling! Pope's, Milton's, Scott's and 
Shakespeare's grinding, done up in costly 
leather binding, and all so dismal and for- 
bidding, that you would cry, "Aw, quit your 
kidding," if some one said, "Sit down and read 
'em, to browse around you have full freedom." 
They stand in rows, all unmolested, unread, un- 
fingered, undigested, save when a housemaid 
comes to clean them, and from the dust and 
cobwebs wean them. The plute exhibits them 
to callers, and says, "They cost ten thousand 
dollars; I hired a man who knows good writers 
— that Shakespeare dub and kindred blighters 
— and said to him, 'Now, off you caper, and 
buy me books to match this paper; the libra' y*s 
here, so go and trim it with Standard Works, 
and crowd the limit.' " In my cheap shack 
the books are scattered around the floor, all 
stained and battered; they have no deckle- 
edged ambitions — they're mostly fifty cent edi- 
tions; but every hour and day I need them, and 
all the neighbors come and read them. 



[ 113 ] 



CRITICISM 

NO odds what kind of work you're doing, 
your friends, with scorn your efforts 
viewing, will say your wires are crossed; they'll 
stand around you criticising, and reprimanding 
and advising, and make your life a frost. You 
paint your pump, and all your neighbors will 
come to contemplate your labors, and show you 
where you're wrong; they'll say your paint is 
punk in color — it should be gaudier or duller — 
and kick the whole day long. If you are w^ise 
you let them chatter — the words of boneheads 
little matter, they're worth a cent a ton; and 
while those words the air are tainting, you keep 
on painting, painting, painting, until the pump 
is done. The man who listens to the spieling 
of critics always hits the ceiling, upon some 
bitter day; be sure you're right — 'twas Davy 
said it — then go ahead and gain the credit, nor 
care what neighbors say. 



u 



r 114 1 




-):■' 




THE FRESH AIR FAN 



THE fresh air crank is rather trying; he keeps 
less selfish people sighing. He'd open every 
door and casement, from garret clear down to 
the basement, so he can breathe some ice-cold 
breezes, and give the rest of us diseases. He 
is a selfish sort of duffer; he cares not how his 
fellows suffer, so he gets air shipped fresh from 
Finland, or other ozone markets inland. If he 
is in an office working, at keeping books or 
merely clerking, he wants a window open 
always, so arctic winds may frost his galways. 
And he will chortle as he freezes, among re- 
frigerated breezes, "Oh, jiminy, but this is 
splendid I Fresh air sees all our ailments ended I 
I know my teeth are all a-chatter, but that's a 
thing that doesn't matter; and I have goose- 
flesh on my system, and frostbites till you can- 
not list *em, and all the clerks around are cursin' 
each item of my mortal person; but what's the 
odds? I am inhaling the air that puts an end 
to ailing. I will not live like stallfed heifers — 
I'll have my fill of wholesome zephyrs." 



[116] 




~«<^»^ 




SPEEDING YEARS 



HOW swift the years roll on, my friend, how 
swift the years roll on! They come and 
make their bows and bend, they smile and then 
they're gone! Some morning, in the mirror's 
face, we see a snowy hair; and ere we've time 
to dye the place, a hundred more are there. But 
yesterday my locks were brown, and life 
seemed in its dawn, and now the gray spreads 
o'er my crown — how swift the years roll on! 
But yesterday I held a child upon my willing 
knee; an infant innocent and mild, and beauti- 
ful was he; and now in tones of bass he speaks, 
he's learned to toil and spin, and he has 
whiskers on his cheeks, and more upon his chin. 
Oh, can this be that little child, this man of 
weight and brawn? How can the two be 
reconciled? How swift the years roll on! But 
yesterday my limbs were free from stiffness, 
pain and ache; and I could climb the tallest 
tree, or swim across a lake. But if I walk a 
block today, my wind and strength are gone; 
they take me homeward on a dray; how swift 
the years roll on ! 




[116] 






STANDING THE GAFF 



IF you have made some costly break, don't 
demonstrate your streak of yellow, by saying, 
** 'Twasn't my mistake — the blame rests on the 
other fellow." Far manlier it is to say, "I am 
the author of that blunder, and if you do not 
like my way, just soak your head and go to 
thunder." George Washington chopped down 
a tree, for which he doubtless knew he'd catch 
it. His father said to him, said he, "Who did 
this with his little hatchet?" If George had 
been a tin-horn sport, he would have said, 
"That Johnson laddie cut down your prune 
tree good and short, so go and take his hide 
off, daddy." But George was not a ten-cent 
youth; in him there was no streak of yellow; 
when he did wrong he told the truth, nor 
blamed things on the other fellow. So he said, 
"Dad, if you must be worked up about so small 
a trifle, why, I cut down your measly tree — I 
did it with my flobert rifle." That spirit is as 
good as gold, though found in low or lofty 
station, and with it you will always hold the 
world's respect and admiration. 




[117] 




'^^^^^' 






^^ 



.-^ 




HARD WORK 

IT'S hard to keep smiling when troubles are 
piling their weight on your neck till it's 
sprained; it's hard to keep grinning when 
others are winning the prizes for which you 
have strained. It's hard to be cheery on days 
wet and dreary, when everything near you looks 
drowned; it's hard to be sunny when all of 
your money is sunk in a hole in the ground. It's 
hard to keep laughing when wearily quaffing 
the flagon of grief to the dregs, it's harder to 
frolic when you have the colic, or gout at the 
end of your legs. But how will it aid you, when 
woe has waylaid you, to rumble and grumble 
and swear? There's nothing that's healing in 
kicking the ceiling, or biting the rungs from a 
chair. It's hard to look pleasant when anguish 
is present, and yet it is strictly worth while; 
not all of your scowling and fussing and growl- 
ing can show off your grit like a smile. 




[118] 



WINTRY WINDS 

THE wintry wind blows down the village 
street, and chills men's whiskers as it fiercely 
spins. How happy they who have the goods to 
eat, and bright, warm fires by which to toast 
their shins! I see the homes where comfort 
reigns supreme, the windows glow, the 
chimneys cough up smoke; indoors the kids 
with merry laughter scream, when Dad turns 
loose a prehistoric joke. The men who work 
in summer, spring and fall, may view the winter 
with imworried brows, rest in their chairs, their 
feet against the wall, and hear the singing of 
their cheerful fraus. There's store of onions 
by the cellar stair, there's bacon hanging by the 
kitchen door; the kids have shoes and other 
things to wear, there's lots of kindling on the 
woodshed floor. And as I look, some delegates 
go past, the hungry men, who always are on 
deck; they hunt a hole in which to dodge the 
blast, all down and out, each one a sorry wreck. 
They would not work when summer smiled and 
glowed, and there was work for every willing 
hand; they loafed and lounged along the open 
road, they played and dreamed throughout a 
busy land. 



[119 1 



IF one can go to bed and sleep, he has no cause 
to ■wail or weep, however large the load of 
care that he is called upon to bear. A good 
night's sleep should nerve the soul to put af- 
fliction in the hole. The man who rises from 
his bed, refreshed by sleep from heels to head, 
and yet confesses dotard fear of griefs and 
worries lurking near, is much too cheap to have 
around; he's dear at half a cent a pound. But 
if a fellow cannot snooze, when he takes off his 
shirt and shoes, and soaks his false teeth in a 
pail, and hangs his whiskers on a nail, the 
fight's unequal from the first, and he is bound 
to draw the worst. He cannot fight with steady 
lance, he cannot look with dauntless glance 
upon the troubles of the day; he wants to shriek 
and run away. One fellow wins in all he tries, 
and captures every offered prize, because when 
he retires to bed, he sleeps eight hours, like 
some one dead. Another fails and draws a 
blank, and owes some money at the bank, be- 
cause at night he seldom knows a solid hour of 
real repose. 





INTO ALL LIVES 

I j " INTO all lives some rain must fall," the poet 
' 1 said on a dismal day, as he wiped the 

damp from the kitchen wall, and plugged the 
roof with a bunch of hay. Into all lives some 
rain must pour, which means, hard luck will be 
with us all ; and some will show that their heads 
are sore, and they'll have a grouch forty cubits 
tall. And some will say, when the hard luck 
comes, "We're always willing to take our share; 
there's no use playing the muffled drums or 
pushing sobs through the trembling air. So 
many blessings have come our way, we'd be 
cheap skates if we raised a roar, when Hard 
Luck comes on a cloudy day, and knocks three 
times on our cottage door. Come in. Hard 
Luck — take the easy chair, and rest your feet 
on the chandelier; you'll soon get tired of the 
cheerful air you'll find in our little wigwam, 
here. You'll soon get tired when you hear us 
spring the playful jest and the sparkling pun; 
you'll soon get tired when you hear us sing, all 
day till the round of chores is done. You'll 
feel the gooseflesh along your back, while you 
remain in this pleasant place, and you will 
chase to another shack, where people groan 
when they see your face." 

[ 121 ] 





SICKNESS 

IF we were never stretched in bed, with sick- 
ness of some standard brand, with influenza 
in the head and boils and bunions in each hand, 
I fear we'd never realize l\ow good and kind the 
people are; for to the house where sick man 
sighs, the village trots, with jug and jar. I've 
been an invalid this fall; all known diseases 
climbed my frame, and others climbed the gar- 
den wall, and waited to get in the game. And 
people came from here and there, to see if they 
could help me out, to try to lighten my despair, 
and place large plasters on my gout. They 
sawed the wood, they milked the cow, they fed 
the hens and w^ound the clock, they packed in 
water for the frau, and shied at any thankful 
talk. They sat all night beside my bed, until 
the morning hours were struck, and held me 
down when, seeing red, I only longed to run 
amuck. They brought me chicken soup and 
pie, and all the things the sick require, and 
kindness beamed in every eye — the kindness 
that no wealth can hire. When I recovered 
from the gout, the mumps, hay fever and 
catarrh, I said, "It beateth all get out, what 
thoroughbreds the neighbors are!" 



[122] 




THE PAUPER 

THE sad and seedy pauper has no one for a 
friend; his life has been improper, and now 
it nears the end. Some cold and frosty morn- 
ing will see him borne away, another awful 
warning, to sleep till Judgment Day. And once 
he was as gilded as any blithesome swain, and 
palaces he builded among the hills of Spain. 
He had his golden vision, when he was young, 
like you; the future was elysian, in his ecstatic 
view. When they have laid the pauper behind 
the old gray kirk, they'll say, "He came a 
cropper, because he wouldn't work. Fair visions 
he was viewing, of fortune and renown, but 
when it came to doing, he wouldn't buckle 
down. He took it out in dreaming of wealth 
in vast amounts, while t'other lads were 
scheming to swell their bank accounts. And 
so we plant his system behind this old stone 
barn, and not a soul has missed him, and no 
one cares a darn." Oh, golden youth, get busy, 
while you possess the years, and labor till you're 
dizzy, like grandad's brindled steers. Yield not 
to visions fruitless, but make the kettle boil ; for 
visions all are bootless which are not backed by 
toil. 



[123] 





THE OLD VIRTUES 

THE old-fashioned virtues are not out of 
date; they'll never relapse to abandoned 
estate. The records will show you that honesty 
pays, as much as it did in the halcyon days. 
And industry brings reputation and scads, the 
same as it did in the times of our dads. So- 
briety helps us to lay up a wad, the larder to fill 
when the wolf is abroad. The silver-tongued 
speakers are jaunting around, and filling the air 
with a riot of sound, instructing the people just 
how they should vote, if they would be sure of 
retaining their goat; they're talking of creeds 
and of isms and things, and nothing of value 
the spell-binder brings. The world would be 
better if speakers would boom the old-fash- 
ioned virtues, and keep them in bloom, and 
say to the people, "Don't worry, don't fret, be 
honest and sober and keep out of debt." Oh, 
that is the counsel the plain people need; it's 
better than platitudes going to seed. The old- 
fashioned virtues much sustenance give; when 
they are adhered to, they teach us to live; and 
when we are ready to murmur good-bye, they 
show us how sportsman-like delegates die. 



[124] 




IT'S well to be sunny, and frisky and gay, if 
one has some money in brine put away; if 
we have the plunder where thieves cannot 
steal, it's surely no wonder if chipper we feel. 
But some folks don't borrow an ounce weight 
of care, they heed not tomorrow, when shelves 
may be bare. And, not a thought giving to 
what may befall, "We'll live while we're 
living," they cheerily call; "eat, drink, and be 
merry, tomorrow we die, and death with his 
wherry will soon paddle by." And then when 
tomorrow comes trailing along, all loaded with 
sorrow and things going wrong, the roysterers 
grumble and murmur and yelp, and send out a 
humble petition for help. "Oh, come, come 
a-flying" — ^you've heard their old tunes — "our 
children are crying for codfish and prunes I Be 
good to us, neighbors, we need food and coal, 
and you, by your labors, have piled up a roll! 
With hunger we sicken, we languish and die! 
Oh, bring us fried chicken and pretzels and 
pie!" Each winter the thriftless send up the old 
wail, the heedless, the shiftless, the fellows 
who fail. 



'I 




[125] 





MARHIED PEOPLE 



mi 



? f 

I! 



YOUNG RoUo and Alice got married last 
year, and then in a palace began their 
career. From goldsmiths and cutlers they'd 
laid in a store; they'd footmen and butlers and jj 
servants galore. They'd dachshunds and • ' 
poodles, apparel the best, and autos, and 
Boodle's the family crest. They had every 
blessing that mortals pursue, but — this is dis- 
tressing — they'd nothing to do I Alas, for the 
bridal of people like these I For folks who are 
idle no fortune can please. So Alice and Rollo 
—a matter of course; such things often fol- 
low — indulged in divorce. Oh, Reuben and 
Bridget got married last May; their roll was a 
midget — he worked by the day. They rented 
a cottage of tumbledown sort, their fodder was 
pottage at ten cents a quart. He's earning his 
wages along with a gang; she's canning green 
gages in that cheap shebang. And neither will 
fidget for things out of reach; for Reuben loves 
Bridget, she thinks he's a peach. And indolence 
raises no cloud in their view; they're busy as 
blazes, with plenty to do. 



[ 126 1 



I^^H?!^ 



THE PUMPKIN 



THE pumpkin lies yellow, beneath the cold 
skies, it's luscious and mellow, and ready 
for pies. So tenderly bear it away from the 
vine, and slice it and pare it and mash it up 
fine; oh, put in the spices, surround it with 
crust, and then in three trices we'll eat till we 
bust! My appetite's balky and dull as can be, 
most viands look rocky, forbidding, to me. 
Away from the fritters I turn with a sigh, the 
coffee's like bitters, and stale is mince pie; the 
spud and the radish can tempt me no more; 
they make me feel saddish, the doughnut's a 
bore. I'm tired of the puddin*, I'm sick of the 
cheese, of things that taste wooden, of parsnips 
and peas. They give katzenjammer, they 
weary the eyes; but loudly I clamor for pump- 
kiny pies! The pies that are golden, well sea- 
soned, yet mild, from formulas olden, by 
housewives compiled! The gods on Olympus 
are uttering cries: "Oh, mortals, don't skimp 
us, but send us those pies! Our grub makes us 
bony, we're in a blue funk; ambrosia is phony, 
and nectar is punk!" 



[127] 




THE winds grow keener every day, as from 
the north they roam, and "Time is winging 
us away, to our eternal home." Old Father 
Time still is in haste, he makes his long legs 
whiz; he seems to have no hour to waste, 
though ages all are his. His eager stride he 
never slows, he never rests or stops, he breaks 
all speed laws as he goes, and laughs at traffic 
cops. He swings the seasons round so fast 
there is no pause betwixt, and summer heat 
and winter blast are sometimes badly mixed. 
The springtime comes, the robins call, but ere 
we've learned their strain, we find we're in the 
midst of fall, and cold November rain. We 
celebrate the noble Fourth, and ere the echoes 
die, a wind comes whooping from the north, 
and Christmas day is nigh. So let us do our 
shopping late, ^his merry, festive year, and fill 
the clerks, who on us wait, with thoughts that 
scorch and sear. Oh, Father Time, what is the 
rush? Is time too good to last? Lie down 
and rest — be quiet — hush! You make us old 
too fasti 



[128] 





HYMN OF HATE 



IT makes no odds if people hate you, if they 
malign you and berate you; for if you're 
walking circumspectly, and doing your devoir 
correctly, what people say will never hurt you, 
or knock the polish from your virtue. Let peo- 
ple hate you, if that action affords them solid 
satisfaction. It's when you hate yourself, my 
neighbor, that hatred prods, as with a saber. 
When I left home this morning, growling, and 
showed the folks a visage scowling, and spoke 
no word that they might treasure, I spoiled for 
them the whole day's pleasure. That's why I 
hate myself so deeply, that's why I hold myself 
so cheaply, and when one hates himself like 
blazes, he can't be soothed with cheerup 
phrases. And every time we are descending 
to doing things that need defending, remorse 
is in our bosoms grating; we know the bitter- 
ness of hating. 





[129] 




BOOK BORROWERS 

SOME folks are rather funny; if they should 
borrow money, they're sure to pay it back; 
they're straight, they're never willing to owe a 
man a shilling, a shotgun or a tack. In all life's 
common phases they are as prompt as blazes, a 
debt gets on their nerves; they are so blamed 
punctilious it fairly makes one bilious to con- 
template their curves. But when they borrow 
novels, and take them to their hovels, to keep 
nine days or ten, you may be sure the chances 
are that those fine romances will ne'er come 
back again. 1 am a chronic martyr; my set of 
old Nick Carter was borrowed long ago; and 
Laura Libbey's volumes, that stood in stately 
columns, my shelves no more shall know. 
Where are the cherished treasures that gave 
me unmixed pleasures in olden, golden days? 
Oh, where is 'Bolts and Fetters," and where 
"The Life and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes"? 
To honest friends I lent them — at their request 
I sent them — and maybe they'll come back 
some day when pigs are soaring, and ptero- 
dactyls, roaring, are roosting on my shack. 



r 130 1 




SPRING SONG 

EVERY sage this scheme indorses: Make 
your premises look neat; cart away the 
old dead horses, burn the rubbish and repeat. 
For the spring should find our city rid of every 
ugly thing; it will be a beastly pity, if we dis- 
appoint the spring. In the spring the world is 
laundered by the soft, refreshing showers, and 
the cleansing winds are squandered by Dame 
Nature at all hours; but the rainfall and the 
breezes can't remove the trash and junk, 
which, like decomposing cheeses, fill the air 
with perfume punk. Let us hustle, and abolish 
everything that draws the flies; let us clean and 
paint and polish till our town delights the eyes. 
Oh, I ought to sing the lily, when old winter 
ups and goes, and I ought to write some silly 
balderdash about the rose, but I make my 
harpstrings rattle, urging folks to clean their 
lawns; cart away dead cats and cattle, old tin 
cans and demijohns. 



[1311 




I- 



w 



r 



KEEPING THINGS NEAT 




YOU plant a rosebush by your door, and 
morning glories three or four; you mow the 
lawn when whiskers green upon its countenance 
are seen; you take the dead cats to the dump, 
and fix the fence and paint the pump; and 
trinti the figtree and the vine, and make the 
doorknob fairly shine. And neighbors who 
have gone to seed, whose lots are grown to 
grass and weed, will soon or late observe your 
game, and feel a burning sense of shame. 
They'll say, "That fellow's place, so neat, is 
quite the smoothest on the street; it makes ours 
look like also-rans, so we'll adopt that smarty's 
plans, and prove to him that other jays can 
well deserve the public praise." I've seen a 
neighborhood that lay all ragged, gone to 
brush and hay, brace up and bloom to beat 
the band because some pilgrim, tools in hand, 
cleaned up his lawn and pruned his trees, and 
bought some flowers and bumblebees. Thus 
good examples spur the souls of men who've 
crawled into their holes, content to let the 
whole world slide, the tail connected with the 
hide. 






[132 1 




1 HEARD the sluggard say, when he was 
young and fair, "This is too fine a day, for 
labor, I declare. Beside a babbling brook in 
comfort I'll recline, and read a helpful book, 
and make its message mine. The reapers reap 
their grain, the farmers bale their hay; and 
work no doubt seems sane to people built that 
way. But better is a dream than any kind of 
toil, so by the babbling stream I'll read up 
Whist on hoyle." I heard the sluggard say, 
when age had made him blue, "All through 
the weary day I wander fro and to; some little 
job I ask, however small the wage; most any 
kind of task, to help me in old age. But for 
my plea and groan no sympathy is felt; the 
hearts of men are stone, and granite will not 
melt." Whene'er I see a youth who w^astes his 
golden years, I'd like to push some truth into 
his foolish ears. Age is the time to rest be- 
side a babbling brook, white whiskers on your 
chest, and in your hands a book. Youth is 
the time, my dears, to cut a goodly swath, and 
your declining years won't find you in the 
broth. 



[133 ] 





i 



THE MODERN JAIL 



^ 



WE'VE made our jails so snug and warm, 
impervious to cold and storm, that Rich- 
ard Roe is glad to dwell all winter in his cozy 
cell. We've cleaned the walls and scrubbed 
the floors, and whitewashed ceilings, bars and 
doors, till sanitation cranks declare there are 
no harmful microbes there. The jail's inspected 
now and then by uplift dames and faddish 
men, who analyze the forks and spoons and 
push their noses in the prunes. The parsons 
there distribute tracts, and scientists take useful 
facts; we all take books and magazines, and 
floral wreaths and kindred greens, and try to 
make the village jug more cheerful still, and 
still more snug. And from the window Rich- 
ard Roe looks out upon the drifting snow, and 
sees the poor unlucky jays, who have not drawn 
their sixty days, by weary efforts strive to earn 
some grub to eat, some coal to burn. "How 
foolish are the sons of toil, who sweat to make 
the kettle boil, since luxury like this they'd 
know, if they were vags," sighs Richard Roe. 



ri34] 



I 




■~ir~~^ 111.1 •"• 






FARM LIFE 



WHEN I was young the farmers' shacks 
were shy of costly tomes; and only last 
year's almanacs were found in many homes. 
I used to work for Uncle Hi, I plied the hoe 
with speed ; and when night came how I would 
sigh for something fit to read I A weekly paper 
Uncle took, and it w^as always stale, but for a 
magazine or book he would dig up no kale. 
We fed the hogs their luscious stews, and gave 
the hens their hay, and never heard the great 
world's news till it was old and gray. Oh, 
countless farmers lived like this, in that fine 
olden time; they held that ignorance was bliss, 
and reading was a crime. My Uncle Hi is now 
on high — at least I hope he's there; his genera- 
tion had to die, as men must, everywhere. 'Tis 
but some thirty years ago since Uncle cashed 
his string, and faded from this vale of woe to 
play a harp and sing. How times have 
changed I The farmer's lair has reading, now, 
to burn; the farmer, in his easy chair, today's 
hot news may learn. My Uncle Hi would find 
things strange, if he could be our guest. How 
times have changed — and every change seems 
always for the best! 



■ 



[135] 



JAMES JIMPSON has a savage pup. and 
when it sees a stranger, it seems to wish to 

, chew him up, and put his life in danger. With 

:3 smiling eyes James Jimpson sees whene'er 
abroad he sallies, the people shinning up the 
trees, or sprinting down the alleys. Some 

i \\ morning James will call his dog, and call and 
whistle vainly; it will be deader than a log, 
and out of business plainly. Some angry victim 
of its jaws will feed it deadly bitters, and whoop 
around with glee because he slew that worst of 
critters. It's strange how many take delight in 
causing grief to others, who seem to work, in 
foolish spite, against all men and brothers. 
It's strange because the man of sense must 
know that course is dotty; it stirs up hatred 
most intense, and causes language naughty. 
And why should any fellow wish to go forth 
seeking trouble? We have enough unasked, 

I j^ oddsfish! Why try to make it double? We 
have to treat our neighbors well, not on their 
corns be treading, or this old world in which 
we dwell will furnish rocky sledding. 



iir 



[136] 




DOMESTICS 

WE'VE had about a thousand maids, who 
worked for us for wages; they cleaned 
the floors and window shades, and cooked, 
by easy stages. And ever and anon they'd 
quit; their time had come to marry; and Grace 
would wed her smiling Kit, and Jane would 
wed her Harry. And I felt sorry for the 
groom, whene'er there was a wedding; when 
matrimony lost its bloom, he'd find some rocky 
sledding. Of all the thousand girls w^e've 
hired, not one was truly saving; economy 
would make them tired, and sometimes set 
them raving. It was the same with Beryl Maud, 
with Susan and with Sally; they'd roll things 
up into a wad, and throw them in the alley. 
They wasted succotash and steak, as good as 
you have tasted ; they wasted pudding, pie and 
cake, and all that could be wasted. They 
wasted soap, they wasted soup, and did it all 
with jesting, and didn't seem to care a whoop 
for wailing or protesting. So when they go 
away to wed, I weep for those they marry, for 
Clarence, William, Stephen, Fred, Adolphus, 
James and Harry. 



[137] 






THE BANKER 

TO blow in wealth I sometimes hanker, oil 
projects labeled "Get rich quick," but ere I 
blow I see the banker, who hits those projects 
with a brick. I am an easy mark, I know it; gold 
bricks to me appear all right, and men with bait 
come up and show it, and strongly urge that 
I shall bite. But long ago I made some 
pledges; I vowed I'd never pay the price of 
josses, wooden hams or wedges, without the 
banker's sane advice. Thus I've escaped a 
thousand dangers, and ills too dark for tongue 
to tell; I've baffled scores of oily strangers who 
had pink polar bears to sell. I buy no gold 
mines in Nebraska, no odds how hard the agent 
tries; I buy no orchards in Alaska, because the 
banker puts me wise. He is my refuge and my 
anchor, when I'm inclined to make mistakes— 
the good old cautious village banker, who sizes 
up the snares and fakes. 



[ 138] 



■"— ^i 



THE RICH MAN 

THE rich man, in the diatribes of virtuous 
and moral scribes, is full of sin and tricks 
and guile, dishonestly he gets his pile. Wealth 
is for him the only lure; he has no patience with 
the poor; that he may gain his place on deck, 
he steps upon his brother's neck. He is a 
pirate and a fraud; the law should strip him 
of his wad. We applaud this sort of stuff, and 
hail the scribes, "Lay on, MacDufF!" We yell 
"hooray!" and wave our hats, and help to 
roast the plutocrats. And while we cuss the 
wealthy lads, we're busy hustling for the scads. 
We bust suspenders every day, in fear a plunk 
will get away. The more we get the more we 
need; we have the rich man's grasping greed, 
without the wondrous skill he owns for gather- 
ing the shining bones. And that is why he has 
our hate; we're down on any soulless skate who 
takes in plunks where we get dimes; we can't 
forgive his godless crimes. 




[139] 




YOU'VE doubtless encountered that terrible 
gent, who'll fight at the drop of the hat, 
who wanders the village, on trouble intent, as 
sassy as Thomas H. Cat. He says he's the 
Terror from Bittercreek Bend, who ne'er was 
divorced from his goat, and he will consider 
that person a friend who treads on the tail of 
his coat. He bullies the undersized people 
he meets, and wrenches the invalid's nose, and 
chases the cripples off most of the streets, and 
tramps on the patriarch's toes. The chief of 
police, when the bully's around, has duties im- 
portant elsewhere; he's pinching an orphan for 
beating a hound, or chasing a hen to its lair. 
It may be for months and it may be for years, 
men stand for this delegate bad; but finally 
someone undaunted appears, and spreads him 
all over the grad. Then people rejoice with a 
hearty good will, no longer distraught and 
afraid; the bully they take to the dump on 
the hill, and put him to bed with a spade. 




[ 140 ] 







FRIENDS 

IT'S hard to know who are your friends, so 
many men have selfish ends. I take a com- 
rade to my heart, and feed him pie and dam- 
son tart, and give him love that's pure and 
deep, and let him in my woodshed sleep. Then 
he requests, in dulcet tones, that I shall lend 
him twenty bones. 'Td gladly lend you all 
you need," I say in answer, "but indeed, H. C. 
of L. has stripped me bare — I haven't twenty 
bucks to spare. If fifty cents will help you out, 
you're welcome to that much, old scout; but 
I've a wife and nineteen kids, who all are need- 
ing shoes and lids, and it's as much as I can do 
to dig up for that loving crew." And then 
my friend comes round no more, to hang his 
bonnet on the floor, and talk with me of vital 
things, of sealing wax and cats and kings. In- 
stead, he roasts me through the town, and tries 
to give me punk renown, as being one who is 
too tight to help a comrade in a plight. This 
sort of thing one gets from friends, as through 
this woozy world he wends. 




[141] 



11 








THE PILGRIMAGE 



IT is a weary road we wend, through this dim 
vale of tears; it harder grows as we ascend, 
accumulating years. The pilgrim murmurs as 
he walks, in voice of doleful pitch, "I spoiled 
my foot on yonder rocks, and fell into that 
ditch. The dust gets in my aching glims, I'm 
pierced by grievous thorns; the dogs come out 
and bite my limbs, cows hook me with their 
horns. All things terrestrial conspire to make 
my life a cross; I'm frozen, drowned, and 
singed by fire, and I'm a total loss." Thus 
through his pilgrimage he goes, the fretful 
mortal guy; he's always thinking of his woes, 
and so they multiply. I find this life a joyous 
jaunt, admire its every curve; it brings me 
everything I want — or all that I deserve. For 
I am looking all the time for cheerful things 
and gay, and I consider it a crime to hunt for 
grief all day. A noble painting cheers my mind, 
inspires me for the game, and I don't strain my 
eyes to find a flyspeck on the frame. 



[ 142] 



PROFITLESS TALK 

IT is a pleasant thing to find a man of culti- 
vated mind, whose spiel is tinged with 
sparkling wit, whose every comment makes a 
hit. It is a luxury to meet a delegate upon the 
street, who springs a subject not so old as to 
be spotted green with mold. Your grateful 
eye upon him beams — for one grows tired of 
whiskered themes, of hearing people say their 
say on ancient topics, day by day. When I go 
down the thoroughfare, to get some goose 
grease for my hair, I see my friends toward me 
walk, when they are distant half a block. 
"Now, here comes Jinks," I sadly sigh, "and 
he will talk of prices high, and give the govern- 
ment rebuke for being such a beastly fluke. 
And here comes Ebenezer Dorr, who'll rant 
away about the war; and here comes J. Lean- 
der Bain, with woman suffrage on his brain." 
I know^ just what they all will say — I hear them 
say it every day. I'd gladly dodge them if 
I could, and climb an elm tree made of wood. 
How pleasant 'tis, my friends, to view the man 
who talks of something new! 



[143 ] 




■r " ■ ■ --^--^i 

^^ CHANGE OF HEART ^^ 

MY teacher, when I went to school, would 
lam me with a pole, when I defied his 
tyrant rule, which jarred and chafed my soul. 
I'd mutter, when he left on me full many a wale 
and bruise, "When I'm grown up I'd hate to 
be in that blamed teacher's shoes I When I'm 
a man, unless he's dead, for all my grief and 
pain, I'll surely punch his old bald head, and 
split his face in twain." The years passed by, 
and I became a man of famous might; I had 
a great and stalwart frame, my whiskers were 
a sight. And so I sought that teacher out; I 
met him at his door, and said to him, "I was, 
old scout, a pest in days of yore. When I recall 
the fiendish tricks 1 played, with ribald glee, I 
wonder that you used small sticks when you 
were pounding me. I was a wicked little dub, 
who riled you all day long; you should have 
used a big spiked club, to show me I was 
wrong." The teacher fell upon my neck, and 
1 reclined on his, and through his tears he said, 
"By heckl" and I remarked, "Gee whiz!" 



r 14-1 ] 





TIRED 



WHEN I was working on a farm, and bran 
dished, with my strong right arm, the 
muzzle-loading hoe, I said, "I'm tired of 
such a grind ; some softer snap 1*11 have to find, 
and to the town I'll go." I got a job in Stuck- 
er's store, and there I worked three months or 
more, and still was short of bliss; and so I 
muttered, with a sob, "I'll have to hunt an- 
other job — there is no fun in this." I wrote 
insurance for a while, and, as I walked mile 
after mile, to rope some "prospect" in, I said, 
"I'm weary of this stunt; some other graft I'll 
have to hunt, at which a man may win." I got 
a job at grooming swine, and found it wasn't 
very fine, nor what I had desired; and so I 
raised my voice and swore, as I had often sworn 
before, "This labor makes me tired." I never 
found a job I liked; from every form of toil I 
hiked, until I broke my tugs; that's why they're 
taking me today out to the poorhouse, far 
away, where paupers swat the bugs. 





[145] 




UNHAPPY FATHER 

IT makes Poor Father's spirit sad, when he 
comes home at night, to hear the kitchen 
stove's so bad, the fire won't stay alight. To 
hear of forty thousand traps he really ought to 
buy, although he's so in debt, perhaps, the 
knowledge makes him cry. His daughters say 
it's a disgrace the duds they have to wear; 
"ashamed to travel any place, we surely are," 
they swear. The housewife says the parlor 
rugs are worth as many derns; she needs new 
vases and new jugs, in which to keep her ferns. 
New chairs, new dishes and new spoons are all 
in great demand; the cook is running out of 
prunes, and has no lard on hand. What won- 
der Father's tired and pale? He can't sit down 
to read, for he must hear the endless tale of 
"things we really need." What wonder if he 
feels relief, when age comes on apace, and 
knows that from this world of grief he pretty 
soon will chase? He sighs, when o'er the sun- 
less sea he's ready to take wing, "Oh, grave, 
where is thy victory, oh, death, where is thy 
sting?" 



ri4fii 



TOWSER 

I DROVE a horse for a long, long time; 
through the summer dust and the winter 
rime I jogged along in my one-hoss shay, and 
never dreamed that a better way of locomo- 
tion I e'er would find, and Towser trotted 
along behind. A happy dog was old Towser 
then; he got acquainted with dogs and men, 
and found fine bones on the right of way, the 
while he followed my one-hoss shay. But 
Dobbin, the horse, grew out of date, and I 
bought a car that can hit a gait of forty miles 
in a fleeting hour, a thing that throbs with 
resistless power. Old Towser followed the 
car one day, as I scorched the road on my 
townward way; he kept in sight for three para- 
sangs, and then he muttered some bow-wow 
dangs, and sneaked back home with a broken 
heart, and died the death *neath a one-hoss 
cart. Alas, old dog, 'twas a bitter end, for 
one that long was a faithful friend, but the 
world moves on, and that dog must fade that 
is too slow for the great parade; must lay him 
down *neath the buttercups — and it's true of 
men, just as well as pups. 



[U7 1 



IS 





BELATED WINTER 



WHEN winter is done, and its journey is 
run, it ought to retire for a while; retire 
to its tomb, or its lair, and make room for 
spring, with her radiant smile. When spring 
comes along with her laughter and song, and 
birds singing carols in tune, man, trustful ga- 
loot, dons a light gauzy suit, and underwear 
fitted for June. He's chipper and gay, and 
he thinks it O. K. to soak all his wintertime 
duds; oh, he's stylish and neat, and the girls 
say he's sweet as the bees and the birds and 
the buds. Then spring flies away, and the 
heavens are gray, and winter comes back with 
a roar, with winds that are bleak, being iced 
for a week somewhere on the Spitzbergen 
shore. Then where is the guy who was saun- 
tering by, attired in his summertime rig? In 
a hospital bed he is out of his head, insisting 
on dancing a jig. Doc says to the nurse, 
"Better order a hearse, and measure this gent 
for a grave; there's no way to miss such a 
drama as this, since winter won't learn to be- 
have." 



[148] 





OBVIOUS TRUTH 

I KNOW that when there comes disaster, that 
sticks like an adhesive plaster, a man gets no 
relief, by giving free vein to his dander, and 
showing Innocent Bystander how loudly he can 
beef. I know that sympathy will dwindle, if all 
the fires of wrath you kindle, when you have 
stubbed your toe; far better for your fame it 
will be, if you will simply nurse your trilby, 
and say it looks like snow. All men admire 
and love the Spartan who struggles to conceal 
his smartin', his sickness and his pain; so if 
your head hurts, don't sit crying, but spend a 
minute prophesying that we shall have some 
rain. I know disaster sticks the tighter to any 
weak and weeping blighter who will not turn 
and scrap; but it will find its job revolting, 
and soon quit badgering and jolting the brisk, 
aggressive chap. Ill fortune is a tin-horn 
bluffer; it dogs your heels and makes you 
suffer, while you for this will stand; but when 
all fearlessly you eye it, and pull its whiskers 
and defy it, it skips to beat the band. 



[149] 



^^ 





AFTER DEATH 






I DO not know just what may hap, when I go 
tumbling off the map, into the outer void; 
I hope to draw a pair of wings, and crown and 
robe, and kindred things, and harp of celluloid. 
But little do I walk the floor, or lose a chance 
to sleep and snore, by worrying my head about 
the things that may befall when I step off this 
whirling ball, and line up with the dead. 1 
think I've all a man should need, in this, the 
simple little creed, that's pasted in my lid: 
"With all your fellow-men be square; be kind 
and just to all, nor care a cent -what others 
did. " If one is square and just and kind, I 
don't believe he'll be behind, when they dis- 
tribute crowns; he'll be a credit to this globe, 
and he will swap for snowy robe, his workworn 
handmedowns. Religion's tangled, teased and 
vext, with dogma and conflicting text, by sages 
splitting hairs; and all that fellows really need 
is just that simple little creed, to climb the 
golden stairs. 




[ 150] 




SATISFACTION 



I HIRED a man to hoe my squashes; he came, 
in gauntlets and goloshes, at the appointed 
hour; he threw his coat upon some boulders, 
and rolled his shirtsleeves to his shoulders, 
and hoed with vim and power. He did not 
pause at times to cackle about the war, nor 
yet to tackle the grievous income tax; he slew 
the weeds that threatened choking the vines, 
and kept his hoe a-smoking, and buckled down 
like wax. And when his toilsome task was 
ended, up to the house this worker wended, 
where I sat smoking hay; "Come out," he 
said, "where I've been hoeing, and see I've 
made a proper showing, before I draw my 
pay." I fell upon his neck and kissed him, 
and hung some laurels on his system, and cried, 
"You take the bun! For seldom do I see a 
fellow who cares how punk his work, or yel- 
low, so that he gets the mon. I am enchanted 
with your labors, I'll recommend you to my 
neighbors, and boost you through the town; 
the toiler who, by every action, endeavors to 
give satisfaction, deserves a high renown." 



[lei] 



KEEP OFF THE GRASS 

THE thoughtless fellows blithely pass, and 
cut a corner here and there, and wear a 
path across the grass, and fill the owner with 
despair. I try to have a nifty lawn, that will 
do credit to the town; and thoughtless fellows 
trot thereon, and break the dandelions down. 
I set out flowers till I go broke — I buy the 
richest and the best — and bow-wows owned 
by thoughtless folk come there and knock 
things galley west. And thoughtless people 
let their cows perambulate the town by night, 
and on the well-kept lawns they browse, and 
make the scenery a sight. And thoughtless 
people all keep hens, and roosters with de- 
structive feet, which come a-whooping from 
their pens, and spoil my flowerbeds and re- 
peat. There's no protection for the jay who'd 
make his home a beauty spot; the thoughtless 
skates will come his way, and climb all o'er 
his garden plot, and spoil the grass and pluck 
the flowers, and bark the trees and crush the 
shrubs; and it will take him nineteen hours to 
tell just how he views such dubs. 



[152] 



^mfwf^''"^-'- 




THE MISSUS 

BE kind to the missus, who spends the long 
days in making your home worth the while, 
be free with encouragement, gratitude, praise, 
and hand her a corpulent smile. You go to 
your home from your job in the mart, and talk 
of the burdens you've borne, the cares that are 
racking your galvanized heart, the ills that are 
making you mourn. Sweet sympathy comes 
from the lips of your wife, and love is aglow 
on her face; the burdens and cares of her own 
weary life have nothing to do with the case. 
Suppose you forget your own troubles and 
woes, and think of the woes of the frau, whose 
cheeks long ago lost the bloom of the rose, 
while wrinkles increased on her brow. Sup- 
pose you remember the work she has done, the 
endless routine of the years, the toil from the 
rising to setting of sun, and always with work 
in arrears. Suppose you remember when she 
was a maid, and you were a love-smitten boy; 
you painted the future in opulent shade, and 
promised her comfort and joy. The missus 
will toil till she drops in her tracks, and goes 
to the rest up above, ignoring the pain and the 
strain and the tax, and all she's expecting is 
love. 



[ 153 ] 




-*^fc 



BEAUTY 

MUCH bunk is sprung concerning beauty, 
as something that won't keep; and 
writers alecky, galooty, insist it's but skin deep. 
"Far better have a conscience tender, that 
balks at sin and lies, than all the glamor and 
the splendor of shining hair and eyes. Far 
better have a love of duty, a heart with virtue 
warm, than win a ribbon blue for beauty, or 
have a queenly form." Why not have both, 
good looks and virtue, clean teeth and sterling 
worth? The combination will not hurt you, or 
raise unseemly mirth. It's good to send the 
heathen shekels, but that's no reason why you 
ought to wear a lot of freckles, or have a 
squinting eye. It's good to help our neighbors, 
always, but seek the barber, too; the saint who 
doesn't trim his gal ways obstructs the fairest 
view. Good women may convert the rowdy 
and rescue burning brands, but if the gowns 
they wear are dowdy, the world indiff'rent 
stands. "Be clean within," exclaims the 
preacher; the worldling vain retorts, "Desire 
to be a moral teacher is no excuse for warts." 



[ 154 ] 



m 



GOING BACK HOME 



THERE'S nothing sadder than returning, 
responsive to a heartfelt yearning, to scenes 
we used to know; but lately to such scenes I 
wandered, and with an aching heart I pon- 
dered o'er things of long ago. I used to know 
a girl named Daisy, who was so smooth she 
drove me crazy; of her for years I'd dreamed; 
and always in my mental vision, angelic, beau- 
tiful, elysian, and bright with youth she seemed. 
And in my recent tour I found her with seven 
husky sons around her, and she was bent and 
gray, and worn from cooking hams and fishes, 
and washing everlasting dishes, and helping 
men pitch hay. And all the lads who with me 
gamboled, and through the melon patches 
rambled, on bygone starry nights, were stale, 
from all their toil and straining, and hobbled 
up and down complaining of aches and chigger 
bites. The town itself was there, unchanging, 
the river down its course was ranging, by hoary 
elm and pine; the old stone church still reared 
its steeple, and in its shade were planted peo- 
ple who once were chums of mine. 



[155] 





ASKING FAVORS 



FRIENDSHIP always wavers, ceases to be 
sweet, if you're asking favors every time we 
meet When I sit a-basking by my cottage 
door, neighbors come up asking favors till I'm 
sore. "I would like to borrow your alfalfa 
stack; early on the morrow I will send it back." 
"Over at my shanty there is much to do; will 
you lend your auntie for a week or two? " 
"Hard times make me holler, I am short of 
tin; can you spare a dollar till my ship comes 
in?" "May the gods defend me, for I'm 
stricken hard, and I wish you'd lend me seven 
pounds of lard." "I have supped with sorrow 
more than other men, and I'd like to borrow 
your old setting hen." "Will you kindly loan 
me sundry hoes and rakes?" So they come 
and bone me, till my bosom aches. Borrow- 
ers are chronic when they once begin, and I 
need a tonic for my cheer-up grin. Borrow- 
ing's a habit that will make your friend 
scamper like a rabbit when his way you wend. 
Borrowing will make you lonesome all your 
days, for your friends will shake you and de- 
nounce your ways. 




IP 

if 



[156] 



I'M always glad when Sunday comes, and our 
old town no longer hums with all the jargon 
of the mart, the bargaining that breaks my 
heart. On Sunday morning I can meet my 
friends and neighbors on the street, and they 
won't try to sell me prunes, or real estate or 
pantaloons. And by no agent I'll be lured 
upstairs to have my life insured. No auto 
salesman on my track, I freely walk to church 
and back; I hear the pastor's helpful views, in 
my new suit and polished shoes; the worshipers 
have left behind, for one brief day, the beastly 
grind, and when the parson's discourse ends, I 
mingle freely with my friends, and no one 
tries to sell me socks or whiskers dye, or 
patent locks. No salesman interrupts the hymn, 
to boost his duplex wooden limb. I walk back 
home in cheerful mood, my spirit full of grati- 
tude that there's one day in every week when 
wheels of commerce cease to creek. I do not 
hide behind a tree when some investment sharp 
I see. I do not have to dodge or spurn the 
agent for a patent churn. 



[ 157 ] 



Wm 




VAIN FEARS 

WHY should I fear the hour of going? I'll 
venture forth, like some good sport, upon 
the silent tide that's flowing to an unknown, 
uncharted port. The world jogged on before 
my coming, as it will jog when I am dead, the 
spheres will on their course go humming, the 
stars will glitter overhead. Man fears his 
passing, but he'd ortn't; the vine that to yon 
trellis clings is just as valued and important, in 
old Dame Nature's scheme of things. Am I 
more craven than the creeper that shades the 
doorway of my coop? Shall I be coward, 
doubter, weeper, when these old vines don't 
care a whoop? The roses do not fear the 
weather that puts the finis to their bloom; 
they scent the summer air together, and un- 
protesting meet their doom. Have I less 
courage than the roses, shall I forsake my 
cheerful grin, when some old sawbones grim 
discloses the solemn fact that I'm all in? The 
lovely roses and the lilies, the boys and 
damsels all must go; it's natural; why have the 
willies? It's no excuse for fear or woe. 



[158] 



1 






THE DIZZY DAUGHTER v*£^.>. 



MARY JANE, you dizzy daisy, what a mess 
you always make! Are you careless oi 
just lazy? Is your intellect a fake? All your 
traps, you heedless critter, I see strewn around 
the floors; Ma will come and clean the litter, 
when she's done her other chores. Always 
counting on another to do things you ought 
to do, always waiting for your mother to come 
toiling after you ! Ma will all this mess abolish, 
when she's dusted forty chairs, when she's put 
a coat of polish on the furniture upstairs; when 
she's cleaned and scaled some fishes, when 
she's pared a pail of spuds, when she's washed 
the dinner dishes, when she's patched a heap 
of duds, when she's so dodgasted weary that 
her work-worn soul is frayed, she'll come toil- 
ing round you, dearie, cleaning up the muss 
you've made. Mary Jane, your mother's 
older than she was when she was young; she 
has stitches in her shoulder, and the asthma in 
her lung; every step she takes is harder than 
the step she took before, as she wanders from 
the larder to the well or henhouse door. Some 
sad day we shall have laid her to her rest, her 
labors through; while she's with us you should 
aid her, not make work for her to do. 

ri59] 




THE HELLO GIRL 



WE hear her silver voice, and mutter, "That 
damsel surely is a peach! She helps us 
earn our bread and butter, and brings all 
things within our reach. Intelligent and prompt, 
she labors, we hear her voice by night and 
day, she makes us seem like next door neigh- 
bors to folks a thousand miles away. She is 
the modern maid of magic, the priestess of a 
mystic fire, and tidings glad, and tidings tragic, 
she sends us daily, o'er her wire. If she dropped 
out, the w^orld, confounded, would stagger 
back and groan and yelp, and Trade, by all its 
loot surrounded, would raise a frenzied cry for 
help. If she no longer drew her wages, con- 
fusion would supremely reign, and back into 
the pitch dark ages we'd swear we had been 
dumped again. She's boosting science, art 
and learning, she is the prop of modern trade, 
she keeps the old world's wheels a-turning, so 
we should bless the hello maid!" 



[l«0 3 



LAND O* DREAMS 



IT'S over the mountains, a million miles, it's 
over the misty sea, it's off at the end of the 
forest aisles — it's ne'er where we chance to be. 
Our homes are gay with the rose and thyme, 
and the grass is bright with dew, but we always 
think of a far-off clime, as the land where the 
dreams come true. The young man frets in 
his native ditch, and pines for a place afar; if 
he stays at home he can never hitch his cart 
to a rising star. He hears the travelers warmly 
speak of wonderful things they knew, and he 
wanders off in the dawn to seek the land 
where the dreams come true. After many 
years, when he's bent and old, he totters on 
feeble limbs, to lay him down in the old home 
fold, and die to the sound of hymns. His 
head was gray ere he learned the truth, the 
truth that is old and new, that home's the ful- 
filment of dreams of youth — the place where 
our dreams come true. 




[161] 



e , i Wra^^'.^"-i-"-,jjj*». 



>*5»ttw>» <\*A^i5l 



THE LASTING FAME 



^bS 



I'D like to leave behind me some work that 
will endure, but briny teardrops blind me, 
the prospect is so poor! Man hates to think of 
sleeping through ages four or five, with nothing 
brilliant keeping his memory alive. But there 
is no foretelling whose fame for aye will stand, 
or who has built his dwelling upon the shifting 
sand. The lions we're adoring, the great men 
of today, whose bright renown goes soaring 
from Juneau to Cathay, whose voices give 
direction to all our projects here, may pass 
from recollection when they've been dead a 
year. Perchance some humble plodder, who 
seems to cut no grass, or other kinds of fodder, 
will, when the ages pass, in people's hearts be 
living, his fame secure and strong, immortalized 
for giving the world some simple song. No 
man can say, "It's certain, as taxes, and as 
sure, that when Death drops the curtain, my 
fame will still endure." To make our best 
endeavor, that is the only way; let fame live 
on forever, or die in half a day. 




[162] 





SOLACE 



IT little takes to heal the aches of people who 
are human; the song of bird, at daybreak 
heard, will cheer a weeping woman; a kindly 
act performed with tact will make some man 
less bitter; a friendly smile will quell the bile 
of some disgusted critter. Where'er I go I 
find that woe is always up and doing, and care- 
worn chumps have doleful dumps, their little 
griefs pursuing. This view they gain from 
years of strain and stress and long endeavor, 
they seem to think that on the blink all things 
will be forever. But when I come I make 
things hum, with joke and whiskered story; I 
always preach that life's a peach, the world all 
hunkydory. And it beats all how gloom will 
fall, when anyone defies it; if you w^ould scare 
away dull care, just show that you despise it. 
The things I say, though lame and gray, from 
almanacs collected, make jaded me/n wear 
grins again, and brace up the dejected. So 
every gent who's worth a cent should preach 
the gospel sunny, and take men's minds from 
sordid grinds, and scratching after money. 



16!! 1 



How sweet to rest serenely in the gloaming, 
the week's work done, your princely 
wages drawn; to rest and read, the winds your 
sideboards combing, and watch the children 
play upon the lawn. I tell you this, my grouchy 
friend and neighbor, there's naught on earth 
more soothing to the soul, than rest that fol- 
lows days of earnest labor, the toil that brings 
a small but honest roll. The pride of wealth, 
the pride of birth or beauty, the pride that 
swells the chests of beau and belle, seems 
shoddy stuff to him w^ho does his duty, who 
does his tasks, and strives to do them well. 
Beneath his vine the workingman is sitting, 
his bills are paid, some roubles put away; upon 
the porch his smiling wife is knitting, around 
his feet the tow-haired kidlets play. For pomp 
and state he wastes no time in sighing, he 
knows how oft such longings lives have 
queered; and past his home the motor cars go 
flying, by men in debt and divers bankrupts 
steered. A cottage home that's yours and 
fully paid for, a happy frau, a sense of duty 
done; that pleasant lot a millionaire might 
trade for, and get big value for his heaps of 
mon. 



» 



[164 1 



A 



EXERCISE 

GOOD long walk each day is wise, but as 
old age approaches, we hate the thought 
of exercise, and ride in cars and coaches. And 
it is when w^e're waxing old that exercise is 
needed; if we'd dispel the fat and mold, our 
trilbys must be speeded. We ought to walk 
to work and back, and shun the elevator, and 
do the chores around the shack, and hoe the 
, jj beet and 'tater. Instead of riding in a car, on 
1 \f seats of padded leather, 'twere better if we 
walked afar, in every kind of w^eather. We 
ought to sweat beneath the sun, absorb the 
heat it launches, and then perhaps we wouldn't 
run to double chins and paunches. We let all 
rules of health go hang, and when in bad condi- 
tion, we do not walk a parasang, but send for 
a physician. Instead of climbing sunlit hills, 
inhaling wholesome breezes, we take a pint of 
purple pills and grunt of our diseases. We 
dodge all forms of exercise, which course is 
truly batty; and when we die the doctor cries, 
"Degeneration fatty!" 



r ifir. ] 



-.-_^^,<j,,y,j^j„_j,-,, 





POST MORTEM 

MAN goes his way, and cuts a narrow 
swath; day after day, we see him in the 
broth. He cuts no ice, displays no wondrous 
worth, gets married twice, at last falls off the 
earth. And when he dies, to Mother Earth 
goes back, with streaming eyes we drape our- 
selves in black. We sighing stand around his 
sombre pall, and hire a band to play the 
march from "Saul." His kindred wail, "All 
pomp he's been denied, but now the tail must 
travel with the hide. We'll do things right, 
regardless of expense, now this poor wight has 
up and journeyed hence. We'll go in debt, to 
give this orgy class, hire steeds of jet, their 
harness decked with brass, the smoothest 
hearse to haul the honored gent, a boosting 
verse upon his monument." The dead man 
sleeps, as kindly Nature wills; the widow 
weeps, and slaves to pay the bills. She bends 
her shape o'er tubs of steaming clothes, to 
pay for crape and sable furbelows. She's in a 
swamp of trouble, deep and wide, to pay for 
pomp and fuss and foolish pride. 




[Ifi6] 



aa— aaiamWi t i ,- 



[167] 



l^^* THE KIND WORD H 

FRIENDLY word that's kindly spoken is 
just as cheap as one that's cross, and it 
may brace some pilgrim broken, who finds 
I this life a total loss. It doesn't cost a copper 

} penny to say, "Good morning, how d'ye do? 1 

1 And it may mean a lot to many, and set their \ j 

faces smiling, too. The smiles we wear are 
inexpensive, yet keep the world in better 
shape; their influence is so extensive it can t i 

be measured with a tape. The kind and ■ | 
■ friendly words we scatter, with love of man- \ 

kind in our tones, may well survive the wreck , j 
of matter, the crash of dynasties and thrones. ? 

And so I greet my fellow mortals with leaded 
smiles of thirteen ems, and do as much, per- ; 

haps, with chortles, as rich men do with gold \ 

and gems. The plan is old; man inter-glacial I 

no doubt was vaguely on its track, and learned : | 
that his expression facial helped things along, I 

j or set them back. And still we must be plead- 

j ing, urging, along this line till time is done, 

j that men may be from gloom emerging, to 

take their places in the sun. 





EVIL RENOWN 



WHAT sort of man is Henry Hank>" 1 
asked the cashier at the bank; he 
sighed, as with regrets, and sadly shook his 
weary head, and swatted seven flies and said, 
"He doesn't pay his debts." Thus finally the 
cashier spake, no explanations did he make — 
there was no more to say; no use of arguing 
about — for that pronouncement lets Hank out, 
the man who doesn't pay. A man's forgiven 
many things as through this busy life he 
swings, and swears and swats and sweats; a 
thousand faults we lightly scan, but there's no 
pardon for the man who doesn't pay his debts. 
If I had seven silly sons, I'd hand them counsel, 
tons on tons, to help them on their way; the 
burden of my spiel would be, "My batty boys, 
on land or sea, be prompt your bills to pay. 
You may have stacks of sterling worth, and 
seem too good for this cheap earth, but if you 
dodge your bills, the world will strike your 
balance sheets, and set you down as chronic 
beats, which reputation kills. Go forth, my 
beamish boys," I'd say, "and always be as 
prompt to pay, as you are prompt to buy; and 
you will flourish then, and thrive, and men will 
boost you while alive, and praise you when 
you die." 

[168] 



■^^^^^^S^S^ 




i 





DREAMS REALIZED 



WE all have dreams when we are young, 
sweet dreams of future splendor; we see 
upon our pathway flung all kinds of legal 
tender; we see ourselves achieve a fame that 
spreads from Troy to Goshen, so all the people 
speak our name with fervor and emotion. Then 
some of us sit down and wait the vision's sweet 
fulfilling, depending on a kindly fate to help 
us make a killing. We wait till we are weak 
and old, for Fortune's kindly token; we wait 
till we are green with mold, and all our dreams 
are broken. Our hearts are filled with bleak 
despair when wintry age approaches, and to 
the poorhouse we repair, to weep and swat the 
roaches. And some have dreams of gorgeous 
hue, fine dreams of coming glory. "We'll 
make those dreams," they say, "come true, 
before we're old and hoary." With willing 
feet and eager hands they're chasing Fortune 
always, while t'other dreamer idly stands, or 
sits and chews his galways. Oh, dreams are 
fine if you have spunk to follow up the vision, 
but all those dreams are simply bunk which 
bring free gifts elysian. 



[169] 





DEAD LEAVES 



THE fallen leaves were lying thick upon the 
withered grass. "My lawn's no longer 
span and spick, alack," 1 cried, "alas! The 
look of things imparts an ache, and kills my 
sunny smile; I'll get a muzzle-loading rake, 
and heap them in a pile." A learned professor 
came along, just at that fateful time. "To 
rake the fallen leaves is wrong," he said; "in 
fact, a crime. The sod demands the nutriment 
that rotting leaves bestow, so let them with 
the soil be blent, and they will make things 
grow." I thanked that learned and able guy, 
and gave him a cheroot; then took the rake 
and laid it by, and played upon my lute. The 
leaves grew deeper on the lawn, blown there 
by every breeze, and when I took a walk 
thereon, they reached up to my knees. Then 
ambled to my garden gate the sawbones, stern 
and pale. "You make me tired," he said, 
"you skate — you ought to be in jail. For 
public health have you no care, most reckless 
of all knaves? These rotting leaves pollute 
the air, and send men to their graves." And 
thus it's been my journey through, a journey 
rough and long; whatever I attempt to do, is 
sure to be all wrong. 

[170] 




#mmmmmimmmmmmmam 

W 



fifmm- 



BEDTIME STORIES 




LONG years ago, when I was small, not 
more than forty inches tall, an ancient 
Avoman used to tell fierce goblin stories passing 
well. Before I went to roost at night, she'd 
spring those yarns with keen delight, and all 
the long dark night I'd dream of horrid shapes, 
each one a scream. And now that I am old 
and gray, and bent and worn, and full of hay, 
I fear the dark and all its hosts of witches 
weird and sheeted ghosts, and only daylight 
can disperse the things that make the night a 
curse. And oftentimes I go and fume around 
that foolish beldame's tomb, and tell her — 
though she cannot hear — how she made night 
a thing of fear. And even as we go to press 
fool dames are sowing long distress, by telling 
kids, in solemn tones, dark tales of ghosts and 
bats and bones. Oh, tell the children pleasant 
tales of silver ships with purple sails, that come 
across the sunlit seas to bring them dolls and 
Christmas trees. 




[171 ] 




WORK AND REST 






TO work is good, to saw your wood, while 
yet the sun is shining, to make the hoe move 
to and fro, where pumpkin vines are twining. 
For men who shirk all useful work are never 
happy mortals, by any chance — they do not 
dance and fill the air w^ith chortles. But don't, 
my lad, make w^ork a fad, the end and aim of 
living; for every day some time to play all 
toilers should be giving. In this broad land 
we beat the band, the w^ay we hump and 
hustle; we keep up steam and work and 
scheme, and wear out mind and muscle. While 
young in years, above our ears the gray of age 
is showing; it would be best to stop and rest, 
but still we keep on going. Then something 
snaps — the brain, perhaps — beyond all cures 
or patches, and we are shown to walls of stone, 
to cells in booby hatches. To work is grand, 
but stay your hand, when comes the evening 
playtime; take in the shows and things like 
those, and leave your tasks for daytime. 



"s I 



nr 



[172 ] 




^^i-i^Oui^it^ 



IF wishes were motors, the beggars would 
ride, and throw on us voters the dust, in 
their pride. But wishes won't carry a man to 
his goal, and beggars must tarry down there 
in the hole. "I wish," sighs the ditcher, the 
creature of brawn, "that I was some richer 
than Andy or John. But Fortune is spurning 
a poor, honest jay, and I'll go on earning a 
dollar a day." If he had quit wishing and 
dreaming his dream, and spent some time fish- 
ing in Knowledge's stream; if he'd made en- 
deavor to master some trade, he would not 
forever be wielding a spade; he would not be 
sweating in gumbo and clay, intent upon get- 
ting his dollar a day. If wishes were horses 
the beggars would ride, but down where re- 
morse is the beggars abide. A wish is a daisy 
when backed up by toil, but if you are lazy 
your wishes will spoil. Your wishes are dizzy 
if idly they grew, but if you get busy they'll 
likely come true. 




[173] 





AUTUMN LEAVES 



THE Autumn leaves are falling, and poets 
heave a sigh, and say that Nature's calling 
on living things to die. A pensive melancholy 
Fall months to poets bring; but I am fat and 
jolly and gambol as I sing. I do not think of 
hearses when Autumn zephyrs wail, but write 
some cheer-up verses, and earn nine kinds of 
kale. The skies are dark and dreary, the rain 
begins to spout, but people should be cheery 
unless they have the gout. The wind is chill 
and snappy, the earth is dank and wet, but 
people should be happy, unless they are in 
debt. The wind will soon be piling big snow- 
drifts on the plain, but people should be smiling 
unless they are insane. I love all kinds of 
weather, I love the Autumn well, when we all 
sit together around the fiire and yell, and keep 
the corn a-popping, each in his easy chair; the 
Autumn leaves are dropping — it's little that I 
care. The Autumn leaves are falling; I let the 
blamed things fall; my phonograph is squalling, 
"Dear Days Beyond Recall." There's firelight 
on the rafter, and kidlets on the floor, around 
me joy and laughter, and neighbors at the 
door. 



[174] 



'«!SE?S' 



CONFIDENCE 



I KNOW a man who hunts for snakes, and 
kills them for their grease. He says 'twill 
cure rheumatic aches, and make your anguish 
cease. The doctors say that serpent oil no 
sort of virtue owns; it will not cure the pains 
that coil around your joints and bones. But 
this old gun who kills the snakes has never 
had a doubt; he says all other cures are fakes, 
when reptile oil's about. He is so everlasting 
sure that what he says is true, that even skeptics 
buy his "cure," to see what it will do. And so 
it keeps him toiling hard, the keen demand to 
meet, and he has bought with bullsnake lard a 
home in Easy street. If you believe in what 
you sell, have faith in what you say, in that 
same avenue you'll dwell, upon a future day. 
If one is not supremely sure that what he has 
for sale makes all competitors look poor, his 
eloquence will fail. A man can sell me setting 
hens, or swarms of bumblebees, or double 
action fountain pens, or cures for housemaids* 
knees, if he's convinced that what he sells beats 
everything around; that sort of salesman's 
wearing bells, wherever he is found. 



S— g^W J I Il l l ll! >■ 



r i7r. 1 



MONUMENTAL 

WHEN I have ceased to rant and rave, and 
all my earthly days are spent, 1 pray you 
place not on my grave a large and gaudy 
monument. All ostentation's doubly vain, 
when on this world we've closed our eyes; give 
me a slab, with legend plain: "Beneath this 
board your uncle lies." For if I've cut some 
grass on earth, I'll need no marble to proclaim 
the story of my sterling worth, or to perpetuate 
my fame. And if I am a false alarm, not worth 
the room I occupy, no towering shaft can add 
a charm to my bum record, when I die. How 
foolish look the gents who sleep beneath all 
kinds of sculptured rocks, who were considered 
passing cheap, before we placed each in his 
box. How foolish is all such parade, such 
pomp amid the graveyard gorse! A hundred- 
dollar saddle laid upon a fifteen-dollar horse! 
When I have jumped this mundane realm, and 
journeyed o'er the silent sea, a three-foot slab 
of slippery elm is plenty good enough for me. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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